A King's Crossing
by The Messenger Crow
Summary: 1965. In the years following the last World War Japan is slowly dying, gripped by the chaotic oppression of its Britannian occupants. As social and economic tensions grow the blasted Tokyo descends into a golden age of crime in order to live on. And so, from the depths of the lost nation the one named Zero, a prince among thieves, steps into the light to claim his destiny.
1. The Roundabout

_**Author's Note**_

Come one, come all. What I have for you today is something that should hopefully tide us all over until Akito starts getting translated again. This is _A King's Crossing_, a multi-chapter fic that's going to try to achieve quite a few things. And with a little luck it might actually pull it all off.

This fic is mostly classified as a standard AU – I say mostly because it's actually a bit more complicated than that, but for the most part this is the easiest way to put it. A huge aspect of this story is going to be world design – there's always more meat to a story that fleshes out more than just the characters, and so one of my goals for this story is to put a large amount of emphasis on the setting. I'm going to actually devote a special kind of chapter to this a little further down the line, in fact.

But for now you have this chapter with the standard narration to go through. Yes, this is a bit lengthy. Actually, this one is _really _lengthy. But fear not – these chapters will get shorter as we go along. Significantly shorter, might I add. This is just the intro.

As far as warnings go, at this point in the story all you need to watch out for is some bad language. And only really in this first scene coming up. Aside from that, you're good to go.

So without putting this off any longer, sit back and enjoy the opening.

(And relax, I know I skipped ahead a number in my chapter count. Don't worry about it.)

* * *

_**Chapter 2 : The Roundabout**_

_When Cain murdered Abel, madness was born.  
__The sort of madness that lies in every one of us.  
__An insatiable desire for conflict and strife.  
__Something so far beyond our control that we both know and fear it.  
__And all that it takes for that madness to spread –  
__Is another.  
__Two siblings. A parent and child. Two people that love each other very much.  
__And some form of desire to tear them apart.  
__It matters not how many times one man lives.  
__He cannot escape his chains.  
__He cannot escape 'life.'  
__He cannot escape 'consequence.'  
__But man will always try to break free.  
__A man will always try to become a king.  
__A man will always fail.  
__Man cannot escape madness.  
__And neither could we.  
__But this time –  
__Will things finally change, brother dearest?  
__Will you finally escape your chains?  
__Will you finally show me the world I want to see?  
_…_Will you? Lelouch?  
__But even if you don't…  
__Please.  
__Live on.  
__You are our last chance._

I open my eye – and morning has come once again.

The sky was overcast and the swampland around me was as dense with fog as one could expect. The remnants of the town that once stood here were at least partially visible through it, although only the larger collapsed buildings had any amount of presence left to them. The small paths that served as roads were as unpaved as ever and the pickup truck I'd hopped in the back of on my way towards Ueno bopped along through it without care at a measly speed as to conserve gas. It was an average dreary day, far too average for what was essentially ground zero of a dirty conflict that arguably still hadn't ended.

I sigh, adjust my eye patch, fix my hat, and let it all sink in –

Today is just another day. Another day to add to the long list of days that I could almost recall individually by heart. Another day, another dollar, another round of mouths to feed, another tireless expedition to another source of income, another search for the answer to life, another commute from one end of the world to another – and for me, another excuse to keep on doing what I do without question. In the end I suppose it's all meant to be – for every individual today is just another day and bears no more significance than any other day. Everyone on this earth ultimately will wake up and go to sleep just like they had on any day – it doesn't matter who they are or what they do, let alone where they go or who they meet.

Everyone is an individual, they say. Everyone is unique. Everyone has a certain thing about them that no one else has.

Everyone is a name and a number. That's how it's always been. Even if you're rich, even if you're poor, even if you're bleeding out on the floor in front of a hospital that won't take you in because you don't have insurance – everyone is a name and a number. And in the end no amount of personal satisfaction can ever change that.

The only thing that gives an individual meaning is power. And those that have that power are free to do as they wish.

Those with power are kings among men. And kings will always do as they wish.

After all, they have meaning. There is purpose to their existence. They have power and the capacity to use it. And so they will, and without reserve. Power is boundless. And so the ways man can gratify himself with power are also boundless.

Such is the nature of this land. Such is the law of this blasted landscape, rife with lawlessness and chaos derived from the context of freedom. But we are never free. For we have no power. And without power, we are nothing.

In this ruined land of Tokyo the landscape was shaped by power. The name 'Britannia' was simply a label – a label applied to the power that nation possessed. It was this power that gave form to this new world. And ultimately power is the only thing that can restore it to what it once was.

But such benevolence does not exist. This land has been blown away by nuclear conflict. Those that survived the fallout wish they were buried in the ground with their loved ones. But they still live on. Some less voluntarily than others. In the end everyone is nothing more than a name and a number. But those with power claim to be something more.

Those with power see fallout and disaster as 'opportunity'. Opportunity for change. Opportunity for renewal. Opportunity to determine just who was the best of the best.

And those without power are doomed to their whims. After all, names and numbers don't have any significance. In the end everyone is born and will one day die. It doesn't matter what they achieved over the course of their meaningless existences. For without power they have no significance. And so their actions amount to nothing. Their actions never shape the world. They might as well be dead from birth.

For as long as I can remember I've had a dream – a dream of turning the twisted order of this world on its side. To give power to the people that deserve it. To prove that power isn't everything and that one's actions determine their true worth. That perseverance is a greater display of power than any amount of money.

But such a dream was a boy's dream. A dream that was founded in blind hope. Power can't be overturned with words or aspirations. Hopes and dreams have no place in this world.

I have since come to understand how the world works. How power can only be overcome by a greater power.

And so –

And so I've come to challenge power in my own way.

This is a land of ruin. A land where law is corrupt and chaos is truly just. And all of us, name and number aside, must learn to survive in it. And to survive is to challenge power – to survive is to defy the order. To be powerless and survive day after day is to essentially laugh in the face of god –

And those with power will always know. Those with power will always envy those who possess true strength.

And that alone is more satisfying than anything else in the world.

Today is just another day. Another day devoted to living in the ruined Tokyo. Another day devoted to this line of work that I've come to enjoy tremendously, yet at the same time dislike considerably. Another day where I can marvel at the freedom I've won myself – the freedom to take in the moment, sit back, and simply 'be'.

But of course such a luxury is too much. Even for people that consistently pull their own weight – no, the whip shall crack and shall crack harshly, no matter what. After all, people without power can only gratify themselves in a world like this at the expense of another.

This was all the more apparent today – it was all the more certain that this would never change. That there was no way to escape the dogs or even the masters that trained them. It didn't matter if you were another dog or even one of the masters – the cycle of idiocy that we call our reformed society goes on and on without end.

I was not alone in the back of this pickup truck. There were in fact three individuals with me. Three individuals that simply would not cease their pointless chatter for a span of two seconds to even so much as catch their breath. Each one is an average, middle aged Britannian central class – Britannians living in Japan that are neither nobility or particularly poor that have fairly standard first world jobs that feel the need to bitch about every little thing, even if not outright. They simply have so many stories to tell each other about themselves, real or not – they need to get their lifelong stories off their chests as soon as possible. After all, their lives are mundane enough that they'd probably forget the whole thing before the week was up.

The one to my right continues going on from one mundane topic to the next. "You know, I've got a feeling that all the women in the world are just out to get us, you know? You try to live at all you just get shit for it, again and again. It's not like I'm gonna become a fag or anything, but you get the idea, right?" For all intents and purposes we will call him Julian. Julian is a clerk working for some small time business and gets paid to sit around and do nothing. He has been divorced twice and is currently cheating on his latest girlfriend. He has a tendency to do what he thinks feels good comes from personal animosity towards aforementioned job which he claims is too boring and lifeless for an exuberant individual such as himself with more untapped potential than there is water in the ocean. He has a tendency to throw a tantrum every time something doesn't go his way and tends to take it out by partaking in the appealing Britannian pastime of Eleven Home Invasion – granted it only takes spending one afternoon sex free for him to lose his top. His stories mostly involve him bashing in heads – both kinds of heads, mind you – of people less fortunate than him.

"Yeah, I hear ya. If only all women were like Elevens. Just sat still and took it in stride. All the shit we put up with over 'em – unacceptable is what it is. I don't see them working all fuckin' day, I just see 'em bitching nonstop." The man in front of me, Joseph, concurs. This was a man who was not fortunate enough to secure unskilled pay at so little cost, working two jobs in three different prefectures while living in a fourth. Despite this he seems to be fairly rich and even better off than Julian. Perhaps establishing that his day job involves scamming the working Japanese men out of what little money they could scrape up and that his night job involves mugging people indiscriminately can shed some well deserved light on this subject. Joseph believes himself to be a hard worker entitled to whatever he desires regardless, however. And when he's denied what he thinks is owed to him purely by the size of his wallet he tends to take it out on married Japanese women and pay off the authorities when things go south.

"Don't act like women are so terrible. It's just not true." A third voice, potentially one of reason, rings out.

"Oh really? Name one bitch who doesn't flail around like some overpriced fish." Julian doesn't really expect a serious answer but he gets one regardless.

"My fiancée is intelligent and beautiful –and she doesn't act like she owns the world."

"I'll bet. As long as she owns you she's set." Joseph chuckles.

"Fiancée? At your age? Tell me you at least wrote up your will already." Julian sighs. "You should stick to the slums until you're at least thirty… If you know what I'm getting at."

"Yeah, there's nothing better than knocking up an Eleven." Joseph concurs.

Off in the corner, spaced a little further apart from the other two was Jonathan, the traditional upstanding citizen, who had broken his silence and made his opinion known. "I really don't get you two. What's so bad about having a meaningful relationship with someone? You really need to respect other people, you know."

Joseph scoffs. "Come on, kid. It's not like you've been with enough girls to say something like that. And Elevens don't count."

"That's because I have the self control to stick to the people I care about. I see a relationship as an equal partnership. And you have to respect the other person or there's just no point to it." Unlike the other two men, Jonathan finished school here in Japan and intends to put his arsenal of textbook certified knowledge to work to better himself and those he cares about. He is an average commuter who works in a cushy office but doesn't take advantage of his fortune and does just enough to satisfy himself while putting out the full one-hundred and ten percent for his job. He takes such shoddy forms of public transportation as this to spread the money he earns around. He consistently bashes Julian and Joseph for their selfish ways of life and believes that their tendencies are not only morally wrong but offending to him personally.

"So you're saying you _would _cheat on your girl if you didn't have the 'self control'?" Julian makes it very apparent that he doesn't take the younger man seriously.

"No, I wouldn't." Jonathan sighs. "I don't need to pretend that I'm someone I'm not when I'm with her. I don't need to lie to her face every time I see her. There aren't any secrets between us. We have a healthy relationship. Maybe if you had something similar you wouldn't be so quick to judge women." Jonathan's tendency to play the noble white knight and his apparent infatuation with his perfect fiancée doesn't particularly keep him from having sexually assaulted many a Japanese woman, however. And he doesn't find a single thing wrong with it – after all, assaulting Japanese women is legal. If it's not against the law he can do it and not be seen as any worse for it. And if his college mates did it, why shouldn't he? He's supposed to be the cream of the crop, right? And the worst part is that his fiancée probably knows and cares just as much –

Joseph laughs. "Tell me something. How often do you hit the slums on Lord Vincent's Day? Don't tell me you haven't – all you college kids are the same these days."

Jonathan doesn't reply.

"Don't bother asking. It's not like he's going to tell us the truth." Julian sighs. "You know, in a few years, once you've had your first kid with this girl, you're gonna want to get out so badly but you'll never pull it off. I guarantee it."

"I'm not like that." Jonathan insists, but he doesn't really seem to be denying their claims.

"Face it, kid. We're all in the same boat here. You're not gonna be any different from us before too long – and don't forget it." Joseph then turns to face me. "Why don't you tell 'em? I mean, can you believe the shit this kid's spouting?"

...and as for me, my face tilted skyward and hidden beneath my favorite fedora and my arms wrapped around the large sack of trinkets I always carried with me, wanting nothing more than to disappear – I suppose I should at least provide some sort of introduction for myself.

I am Lelouch Lamperouge. And where all these men fail I succeed. I am a thief – a high class thief who steals from those that trample upon those less fortunate. I am by no means a sort of Robin Hood – I steal from the rich but do not necessarily give to the needy. I provide for those I am tasked to provide for. I will not tear down my fellow man, nor will I come to his aid with open arms. I act not to gratify myself or my existence, or even my lack of power, but to preserve all that I hold dear. I will only deter the exploits of those who consider themselves better than I and will put the fruits of their blind elitism to more proper use. And in this world, in this ruined Tokyo, this is the only form that values and morality can take.

You can only give as much as you can take. But if you wish to be more than a name and a number, if you wish to transcend the idea of social order, you have to take that much more. Give that much more. But most importantly you have to hunger – hunger for a certain light that so many, by no means excluding these three men, have lost sight of.

"Hey, I asked you a question, man. You asleep or something?" After no more than two seconds of being ignored Joseph is ready to set me on fire and piss on my ashes.

I adjust my fedora and peek at his disgusting face from underneath. I simply stare at him like that, producing no response for him.

"Hey, is there somethin' on my face or something?"

I can't help but grin. He set himself up a little to perfectly for this one. "Hm… Yes, there's quite a lot on your face. A few layers of skin you don't need, an eyeball or two, that god-awful mouth that won't stop flapping – you ought to take better care of yourself." Julian snorts with amusement while Joseph glares at me. Jonathan is largely unresponsive, likely because he can sense the conflict coming on.

"Hey, who the fuck you think you're talking to? Talkin' shit like that to my face –"

"Are you supposed to be someone important?"

"Damn straight – I'm real working class gent. There isn't a man in the fucking world who puts as much in as I do. And I put up with my share of shit, so don't you think about givin' me any."

"Ah, my apologies. I hadn't been informed." I then look away from him, once again staring up at the sky, my face once again hidden under my fedora.

"Looks like this guy thinks he's some pretty hot shit, Joseph." Julian grins, shrugging his shoulders. "Are you a rich boy like this kid over here? Or are you some kind of piece of shit who thinks he rules the world?" Oh, the irony of that statement.

"If you're asking if I'm Japanese, the answer is no." I reply, still relatively ignoring what was going on only just in front of me – Joseph was clearly ready to rip my head off, and my giving of precisely zero shits towards his hurt feelings wasn't making it any less apparent.

"Well, excuse me." Julian narrows his eyes and shakes his head. "You know, you're enough of a snob that my pal over here could rip you a new asshole and I'd let it happen. What kind of cunt did _you _crawl out of? Don't tell me your some kind of piss-breed."

"My mother was German." I reply.

"German?" Joseph suddenly laughs. "Are you serious? They let shit like you in this country?" This was almost amusing. On top of everything else this man was racist.

"Is that somehow unsatisfactory?"

"You know what? I've had enough of your snob bullshit. Get your ass out of my fuckin' truck." Joseph fumes.

"_Your _truck?"

"You don't know what kind of shit I put up with – as far as I'm fuckin' concerned this truck is mine. I fuckin' –"

I glance at him from beneath the rim of my hat again. "Oh, so that's your reasoning? How unfortunate. For a moment I thought you were going to say something intelligent."

"You _asshole_…" He then glances down towards my bag. "And what the fuck are you carrying around a big-ass thing like this for?"

He reaches out to grab it, and in that same instant I grab his arm.

He flashes a toothy grin. "Ah, you don't want me to see what's inside, huh?"

"I'll only say this once." I once again start look up at the sky, trying to avert my gaze from his disgusting mug with as much effort as possible. "If you touch my bag I'll snap your neck."

Joseph then puts two and two together. "You- you're some kinda crook, aren't you? The shit in this bag is stolen, ain't it?!" He narrows his eyes even further. "Shitstains like you make me sick. Social bimbos are what you and your folk are. Get the fuck outta my truck before I bash your fuckin' face in."

I now understood just what had pissed him off so much – he'd seen a less pitiful version of himself in me. And for his own sake he wanted to rip me to pieces to satisfy his own petty desires. In the end doing so wouldn't benefit anyone, not even himself – his life is finished, one way or another. From now until the day he dies he will simply be on loop.

"I'm not going to repeat myself." I respond with the same lack of care that this time around make Jonathan clam up – rather ironically he was the physically weakest of all three, but he was somehow the only one who figured out I was being dead serious. Joseph once again starts fuming while Julian starts laughing.

"With guns like those? You probably couldn't snap a twig, rich boy." Julian rolls his eyes before leaning back. He glances out at the road for a moment. "You know, if you're really _that _sick of his trash talk, Joseph, you could probably dump him off here. It's far enough away from the next town – no one'll find 'em."

"Good idea. I think I'll do just that – but first let's get a look at what's inside this bag –"

Joseph reaches out and latches onto my bag with his filthy hands.

I told him I'd only say it once. I did give him a fair warning.

With one quick motion I twist Joseph's head around a hundred and eighty degrees. He's slumped over lifeless before he can even realize what happened.

"What the fuck –" Before Julian is able to even finish his thought I've already drawn my revolver and shot him between the eyes.

Needless to say Jonathan let's out what quite possibly suffices as the least masculine scream I've ever heard in my life.

The truck comes to a stop, rather conveniently right along the side of a small hill. I nonchalantly stand and walk towards Joseph's corpse – stripping him of his wallet and of the shiny silver watch on his wrist, I lift him over my shoulder and roll him over the edge of the truck – I watch with some amusement as his body rolls down the hill into the dirtied water below while Jonathan looks on in pure terror.

I then do the same to Julian – ironically enough Julian had twice the amount of cold hard cash on him than Joseph had, and on top of that had what seemed to be a very expensive looking cigar case – pleased with the haul, I sit back down, this time right across from Jonathan. I wonder for a moment how much of Joseph's ramblings had been complete falsehood – but no matter. His story is over, and let's be honest – he won't be missed.

The truck still hasn't started moving again. The driver is apparently going to be waiting this whole scene out. Jonathan has likely soiled himself by now but despite having the perfect opportunity to run for his life he doesn't move a muscle.

I give him a rather confused look. "I can't help but be curious –"

"P-Please, don't kill me! I swear to god I have nothing to do with them – I mean I don't even know anything about them aside from how sleazy they were, if you let me go I swear I won't say a word about this to anyone I –"

I raise my hand – he cuts himself off almost instantly. "Tell me something. You're in college right? Or did you just graduate or something to that effect?"

"I-I graduated this past semester…" He stammers out his response – the look on his face suggests that he has a pretty solid grasp on whatever he believes will be the outcome of this conversation.

"Ah, yes. I believe you said you finished at Ashford Academy, am I correct?"

"Y-Yes, that's right."

I smile. "Ah, see, I know someone who goes to Ashford. You must've worked hard to graduate."

"U-Um, yes, it was hard work, but I did what I could."

"My friend has spoken at length about this year's graduating class. I heard ninety percent graduated with near full marks. A rather impressive feat."

Jonathan suddenly seems to relax – of course, he's likely had this conversation plenty of times before. He's likely been praised for his success on countless occasions – this is something familiar to him. Something that saps away his fear. "I-I was fairly surprised too. I didn't think so many of us would do so well." But I wonder – has anyone ever questioned the validity of his success to his face? No matter – I was about to do something worse shortly.

"I've also heard a number of other things-"

"Such as?" Jonathan cuts me off. He was desperate to find some sort of normalcy in this – he wanted to believe this would go like every other conversation he'd ever had about his school, even if he'd previously addressed such things with boring disdain. His life is flashing through his eyes – but he doesn't want this to be the end.

"That this year's graduating class made every excursion fun for everyone – particularly the runs down to the slums and into the homes of unsuspecting Japanese women. In fact, I _think _Ashford has never seen such a corrupt group of individuals in all it years." I shrug my shoulders, casually pulling out my revolver again and waving it around – the moment it catches his eyes Jonathan is glued to it. When he starts speaking again he isn't even looking anywhere near me.

"C-Corrupt?! B-But that's not –"

"Oh? Are first degree murder and sexual assault not signs of corruption?" I lean forward and flash a most menacing glare at him, practically peering into his soul. "Or is it perfectly fine, 'because they were Elevens'?"

I can practically smell it now – at this point Jonathan is only moments away from voiding his bowels entirely, but even so he manages to speak. "P-Please, I didn't-"

"You didn't _mean _to? Do you honestly think I'm stupid enough to believe something like that?"

"N-No, please, I'm sorry –"

"Tell me something – I'm sure by now you can tell what I've got under this hat, right?"

He nods his head vigorously. "T-There's an eye patch… Over your left eye."

I nod. "Correct. Would you like to know how I came to need such a thing?"

The conversation keeps going, but he no longer has any control – not over anything. And so he finally breaks. "I- Please, just… Just let me go. Or shoot me – whatever the hell you want to do, I can't take this –"

"When I was no more than nine years old I was drafted into a very particular war. I'm sure you know which war I'm talking about, right?"

His eyes widen slightly, if such a thing were even possible considering how they were already bulging out of their sockets. "Y-You were… You were in Russia?"

"That about sums it up, don't you think? And do you know what sort of thing happened to people in that war?"

"T-They died?"

"Ah, if only it were that simple. Yes, people died – but more importantly those that survived made demons… Only those who sin can create demons. And I can tell just from the look in your eyes that you've made plenty of them. And it's only a matter of time before they catch up with you."

I back away, holstering my revolver. "Turn around." I order.

Jonathan does as I command. I reach into his pockets and pull out his wallet. Extracting the sizable sum of bills and noting the thicker object it was wrapped around I stuff the now much lighter object back in his pocket. "How much did those shoes cost?"

"…A-About two hundred dollars."

"Hm. I half expected these to be close to a grand. Take them off regardless." He does so – I stuff the shoes into my bag. "Now tell me something - how much were you paid?

"H-How much was I paid for what?!"

"Don't think I didn't spot this in your wallet." I slip the small, credit card like object out of the wad of bills and flash it in front of him. "What was the pay? How much were they paying you?"

"I-I don't know who you're talking about!"

"Spill it... Surely you know by now that men like you who get hired for this sort of thing tend not to come back alive."

He hesitates before he stammers out an answer. "T-They promised me enough to marry my fiancée. A-And then..."

"And then enough to clear out whatever _other _skeletons you have in your closet?"

"S-Something like that..."

"What did they tell you? What was your assignment?"

"O-Oh, come on you _know _I can't tell you that! They'd find me and kill me if -"

I press the revolver against the back of his neck. "And if you don't tell me what job they gave you I'll save them the trouble."

"I-I...I was supposed to track the big guy - you know, the boss... Please don't make me say anything else...!"

"And did you succeed?"

Once again he hesitates. And this time I restrain his arm and start pulling back - only a little more pressure and I'd break it completely.

"Y-Yes!" The moment he answers I release him. I shove him forward, causing him to stumble slightly.

"Now get moving –Walk down that hill and keep going straight in that direction. You should hit the nearest town before nightfall."

"Y-You're letting me live?!" He almost shouts with joy.

"You have two choices – to either continue living your life as before or clean up your act. Take responsibility for your actions and don't throw them all on someone else's shoulders. Don't defer to the law for every little thing. Don't hide behind it like a coward and expect it to come to your rescue every time. No matter how righteous you find your actions to be you will never matter to anyone – not even to yourself – if you can't bring yourself to understand others. Start by understanding the plight of these people your homeland are responsible for."

"I-I will, I swear it...! I'll repent, just you wait…!" Jonathan hesitates for a moment, but once realizing he has nothing left to lose he takes off –

Not even bothering to see how far he manages to stumble past the base of that hill I load my revolver and with little effort blow his brains out from a fairly lengthy distance. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that _you _were going to die no matter what."

In the end it's best to die with hope in your heart. In truth I hoped that his heart had stopped before it had let it all go. After all, while he sealed his own fate, it was not his fault that he was robbed of his chance to repent.

After a rather uncanny moment of silence I turn towards the front of the truck. "All clear." I shout to the driver. Out of the driver's window the driver extends a thumbs-up. Securing my bag I get out of the back of the truck and hop in the front passenger seat. The driver sighs.

"I thought I was going to have to do something about them – I didn't realize how well you could handle yourself." The driver sounds somewhat relieved. "…But don't you think that was a bit dark? I mean, I know you had the time since he didn't take off, but that was a bit cold. I don't think the boss would've wanted him to go out _that _way."

"He brought this all on himself. This is what happens when you get with the wrong crowd."

The driver extends his hand. "I take it you got the piece, then?"

I hand him the small ID card I'd pulled out of Jonathan's wallet from between the bills – this card had, all along, been my true goal.

I apologize if my narration has been a tad on the… unreliable side towards the end there. I tend to build myself up to be more of a heartless figure than I particularly personify. In fact, if I'm to be honest, the level of sadism you've just witnessed is something I have a knack for avoiding. In essentially every other instance killing is something I avoid at all costs. But this level of deceit is part of the profession – well, not _exactly _part of the profession, but I suppose I'm not a particularly _normal _street rat, so there's that to consider.

In truth, this whole scenario had been set up. While Joseph and Julian were unfortunately unavoidable casualties, Jonathan had been employed by Britannian Law Enforcement to spy on an associate of mine and was going to die no matter what – he was apparently good enough to have cracked my associate's verbal message encoding fairly quickly and had to be put down before he could leak any serious information.

My associate and I go back a ways – in fact it was mostly due to his assistance that I took to thieving to provide for my family in the first place. Occasionally he calls me up and contracts me to perform tasks like these – the general rule of thumb is that I only have to part with whatever valuable item he wants. The rest is mine to keep. Furthermore, I'm not paid in cash for my efforts – instead I'm given intel about valuable items that no one's gotten around to stealing yet, which certainly works out better in the long run despite the extra mile I have to run.

Jonathan was apparently on his radar as early as last week, but he'd chosen not to call me in until he felt that it was as urgent as it was going to get. Recently law enforcement has been contracting civilians, primarily college students that graduate at the tops of their classes, to perform mole operations for them primarily to bring criminals out into the open. They blend in far too well, but on the downside they aren't quite skilled enough to be entirely discreet. After tracking him down to a truck stop in Ginza we decided that we had the perfect opportunity to strike. The plan was to take him down, while at the same time secure proof that he had been contracted by law enforcement, among other things. The ID card apparently was the only article that I had to secure.

The exact purpose for this was rather beyond me. I was just doing my job as usual, so I knew virtually none of the details beyond what I've already disclosed.

All I knew for certain was that my associate is under heavy surveillance, and that Jonathan had more or less uncovered his location. Law enforcement is willing to go to all sorts of lengths to see him behind bars and so it's become near impossible for him to even wake up in the morning without having someone watching his back. That pretty much goes without saying, considering how he's one of the three most well known criminals in Japan.

"He definitely knew where we've been hiding him. He was probably heading up to Ueno to let his superiors know where we'd been."

"What makes you say that? Is there some branch of the law in Ueno that takes intel like this? He should've gone straight to Yamato."

"There isn't. But that's precisely the point, isn't it?"

"Couldn't they at least have had the kid phone them? It's not like they don't know how hard-ass we are about this kind of stuff."

"Phones are still too risky for them. They don't know which lines he has tapped and which he doesn't."

"But… A college boy? His life was just getting started. Why'd they cite such a young one?" Before I forget to make note of it, the driver is a Japanese man who works for a friend of mine. Despite Jonathan being Britannian, he still felt sorry for him to some extent – surprisingly enough a large number of Japanese could sympathize with Britannians who were exploited by the same system that had ruined their country, even if the Japanese were so much worse for it. Granted you wouldn't find any dissenters working in the sweat shops underground, but even so it was somewhat remarkable to see how reasonable these people could be.

"Because he wouldn't stand out. Because he wouldn't have known the risks. Because they'll see the money and be oblivious to everything else. They were probably planning to pay him a small fortune. Or at least act like they would and feed him to the dogs before they'd have to pay up. Hopefully the more of these we kill the fewer they'll send out."

"Taking down their own, eh? Damned Britannians… Ah, no offense or anything, Lulu."

"It's not an issue…" I then sigh, fixing my fedora. "Although I'd appreciate it if you refrained from using that nickname."

The driver laughs. "Oh really? What, is that name limited to girlfriends only?"

"She's not my girlfriend… In fact we're only recently acquainted."

"Hah, really? It seemed like you two knew each other for years."

"I assure you, she's simply overly friendly."

"Heh. You act like that's a bad thing."

"For my purposes, perhaps it is."

"Huh… Not really sure what that's supposed to mean… But anyhow, we're about an hour away from Ueno. You're gonna have to get back to Shinjuku on your own, though – I've got to get this back to the boss."

"Understandable. So where exactly am I headed this time?"

"We found an old Japanese manor that a Brit aristocrat renovated. There's quite a bit you could snag but the main point is to make off with the stone slab in the master bedroom. Apparently it's some valuable artifact that you could probably sell off for lose to seven hundred grand."

I raise an eyebrow. That was an awfully tremendous sum – but more importantly I'd been tipped off about it for pulling off a fairly simple job that I'd done several times before. Clearly what Jonathan had on him was worth quite a bit. For and ID card to have such worth despite its owner being dead – I was a bit too curious about it, even for my own good. "Exactly what is that card for? I'd imagine something pretty spectacular."

"Sorry, I can't say a word about it. Until the boss gets into Shibuya I can't risk anything getting out."

"What, you think I'd tip off the authorities about your plans willingly?"

"Not willingly, no."

I suddenly see what he's getting at. "Ah, I see. I suppose that it's for the best then."

It would seem that my curiosity would have to go unsatisfied for now. But ultimately whatever it was that they had in mind wasn't any concern of mine – I had other things to deal with, particularly the manor that I was going to break into later tonight.

From then on the ride continues in total silence. There's little debating that the atmosphere was less intense now – we'd done our job, and even if there were more complications later for now it was sufficient to leave it at that.

* * *

_Ueno Prefecture, Several Hours Later_

The sky is notably darker, the streets are as unclean as ever, the sound of police sirens was audible no matter how far away from the back alleys you were, the locals are unfriendly, the houses are either cardboard boxes or three story mansions –

Yes, Ueno has not aged a day.

It didn't take much work to figure out where the manor I'd been told about was located – Ueno was a bit more urban than the other prefectures, but even so the number of residences did not help my destination hide itself whatsoever.

It's probably worth mentioning how things work around here – in the ruined Tokyo, there is very little, as I've already mentioned. But along the outer rim of the wasteland are the 'new' prefectures of Tokyo, which were now nothing more than the bits and pieces of the surrounding cities that survived the chaos. It's more accurate to refer to Ueno Prefecture as Ueno City, but for the sake of consistency I've decided to regard it as such.

None of the prefectures are particularly close to each other. In fact, aside from the commuter crowd they all practically had nothing in common. The social standards, the degrees of Britannian influence on the culture, and even the prices of goods varied from place to place. The one thing they all _did _have in common, however, were the tunnels.

Running underneath Tokyo are miles and miles of tunnels where the unfortunate people of this once proud nation now reside. If you were married to a Britannian or at the very least betrothed to one you had a chance to survive the fallout. Even if you didn't and you were at least above middle class status you had a very solid chance of keeping your home. But if you were the least bit normal, the least bit unfortunate, your fate was sealed – you were to live in the tunnels underground to dig. And dig you would, for an eternity. The workers have come to live down there, and will continue to do so until the digging is finished.

Despite my initial description, Ueno itself wasn't exactly considered a trash heap, but to a serious extent it was one of the ailing prefectures. Crime is astoundingly common here and law enforcement was incredibly active, although extremely disorganized as half of the officers trying to crack down on looters were in the houses doing the looting themselves. Most common citizens, Japanese or otherwise, had resorted to looting as well as domestic Ueno goods are by far the most worthless on the market – after all, you can never quite know what is stolen and what isn't. And no one _wants _to buy stolen goods. It's only ironic that almost one hundred percent of Tokyo's population still do anyway. But anything from Ueno simply 'couldn't be trusted'. Or so the new economic standard stated.

I find myself taking a fairly busy street to get to where I need to go. On the street corner two officers have arrested a man with a handgun at his feet, while on just the other side someone under the influence has crashed a car into a shop window. Further down the road are the usual peddlers who scam passerby out of their cash for worthless trinkets. I know all of them by name, funnily enough – I've been here often enough that I've been haggled by all of them more than once.

If you were a high profile thief this was essentially the best place to hide out. You can get away with a lot more than you could in places like Shinjuku that were much less slum-like. Unless, of course, if you're one of the big three. This is not to say that I _am _one of the big three. Since I'm not. But that aside, there's enough chaos going on that I should be able to sneak into the manor without too much difficulty.

I decide to make my move at around nine in the evening. The usual robbing hours were between one and eight in the morning, but I knew this area well enough – all the rich families would be out at gathering hall at the center of town. It was not only the safest place to hang around but the average rich folk would even get to show themselves off. And rich Britannians never passed up on an opportunity like that. Especially when they were only _sort of _rich, as all aristocrats insane enough to live in Ueno were.

In this area the smog from the industrial towers is somewhat prevalent – the mining can be done at twice the speed in Ueno since there's no one quite rich enough to complain about fumes and actually have their way. As such, night falls significantly faster.

The manor itself was just as described – it was old and traditional, but was westernized enough that no one would really care if I desecrated it. It was, however, guarded quite heavily – it would seem the owner was a tad richer than the rest of the folk on this block and was quite serious about preserving that artifact.

Despite the level of security I find my way into the manor without much issue. One of the guards inside had left a window open – I checked my corners to ensure it wasn't some sort of trap but it appeared that wasn't the case. Whatever room this was, there wasn't a soul around, so my entry went off without a hitch.

I feel around the wall furthest away from me – I flip on the light switch I find for all of an instant before I switch it back off – in that one instant I map out everything there is of interest in this room. This was a relatively uninteresting room – disregarding the door a few feet to my right there was a fairly new looking television set in the center of the room that I had no real way of absconding with and a couch that suffered from similar issues – but on the floor there was a high quality rug that was small enough to fit in my bag without issue – I roll it up and as I do I stuff the porcelain tea set on the small glass table near the couch inside.

With that I make my way out into the hallway –and once more I find myself in my element. There are guards patrolling the hallways and for the most part there is little to no lighting – such conditions would deter normal thieves, but I've been living in the darkness since that time nine years ago. Mind you that's not exactly as figurative a statement as I'd prefer – but at any rate, I could move about in the shadows as though I were standing in broad daylight.

I make my way down the hall, once again recalling the fundamentals of my job –

Rule one. Do not be seen. Being seen is the same as being killed. If I am seen, I am dead. And I can make of that statement what I wish.

Rule two. The darkness is my enemy, not those that dwell within it. These men are hired. These are men with families who potentially risk their lives for their sake. These men know the risks of their profession but are willing to risk everything for their family's sake. Killing is prohibited.

Rule three. Everything belongs to me.

I manage to slip into another room, this one having a decently sized china cabinet off to the side. I sweep it for anything that looks valuable – I end up making off with half the contents. I slip out of the room again after waiting for a guard to round a corner – another one is mere meters away from me but fortunately enough facing away. I move slowly and steady my bag – the slightest sound will give me away.

I manage to creep silently enough that I'm able to round the corner and reach the flight of stairs on the other end of the hall without issue. Upon scaling those I find myself in a much smaller hallway with two rooms on either side. I decide to enter the room closest to me on the right –

And I'm met with pitch black darkness.

But this isn't a problem for me –

I manage to move about, avoiding several objects in my way by judging the way the floorboards creak. I manage to find my way safely to a wall – I search along the wall for a light switch, and without too much issue I manage to find one without bumping into anything –

The interior of this room is best described as being in a state of pandemonium. This seemed to have at one point been a collection room for valuable porcelain statues, but in its current state you could hardly tell – everything from the cabinets to the shelves were defaced, broken down, or turned over. But more importantly there were three corpses in the center of the room, each with their throat slashed open.

I suddenly hear something coming from the hallway – I make my way towards the doorway, not even bothering to switch off the light.

I step out into it – the light from the room I'm spills into it – a trail of fresh blood that I was almost certain hadn't been there before starts from the room just across from me and heads into the doorway just to my right.

I decide to go ahead and check. I wasn't sure what possessed me to, but I had to see what was beyond that door.

I'm not one to cower in fear at the mere sign of blood. Right… This is nothing. Nothing like how it was back then.

I open the door slowly –

There's a lamp on near a bedpost – I can tell just from the layout I'm in the master bedroom. The so called artifact is still on its pedestal next to the bed – this I knew solely from the elaborate nature of the pedestal – there was a massive padlock with both a combination and a key lock keeping the glass case shut. The artifact itself was incredibly small and didn't exactly fit the description of the sort of thing you'd expect to find when you thought of an artifact. As opposed to some elaborate ancient looking stone carving or something this artifact was a small, rectangular object with what seemed to be some sort of glass cover imbedded into the side facing the light. There were notches on the sides that almost looked like buttons on a remote controller – the design was simply bizarre. The casing seemed a little too elaborate for something so small, but I'd imagine it wouldn't be the most durable thing in the world. I could only assume that if someone _were_ to smash the case open an alarm would sound –

And then I suddenly get the bright idea to look down at my feet – there's another dead body on the floor just in front of me – and in the back by the wall I suddenly notice something moving through the shadows – it was the assailant.

For a moment I thought it was master thief number two – the second most well known thief in Japan who was known for this sort of thing.

But no –

The perpetrator steps into the light –

Immediately they close in on me, a bloodied kitchen knife at the ready – I manage to drop my bag of loot and dodge the initial strike with enough precision to have enough time to ready my revolver – but my attacker closes in too quickly for me to aim with it. In a matter of moment's I'm overcome with a very specialized style of combat – something that no degree of military training would ever produce. No – this was a unique style of fighting, and it belonged to one person and one person only –

The attacker grabs onto the barrel of the revolver and shoving me with their elbow they pull it away from me – then they throw their knife right at me, giving me perhaps a two second window to duck in cover. I manage to make it through that attack and the knife lodges itself in the wall behind me. But as I try to stand myself back up and reason out a method of getting my gun back, the attacker dismantles my revolver at a near inhuman speed, tossing the remaining scraps off to the side.

Standing there, their 'face' was fully captured by the light.

I'd recognize that mask anywhere.

No, this was nothing short of the worst case scenario.

This was numero uno.

Zero, the Black Knight. The Prince of Thieves.

I fix my fedora and with as much swiftness as I could muster I yank the kitchen knife out of the wall and charge towards him. As expected, my attack is repelled with ease.

I use my current close proximity to my advantage and attempt a leg sweep, but Zero backs away too quickly but immediately lunges forward again, apparently having drawn a much longer knife in the quarter second window I hadn't been pressuring him for.

Readjusting my position I'm ready to parry the strike – we lock blades, neither one of us particularly ready to give in – but Zero was holding one of his hands behind his back, insulting me.

Our deadlock continues – while I'm struggling to maintain my stance, Zero seems almost relaxed.

Suddenly he speaks. "Ah… I know this stance… Heh, and I know that hat. It's been awhile, Lelouch."

"Not long enough for my liking. So tell me – who tipped you off?"

"Don't worry. Your Orange isn't double crossing you. But for all intents and purposes I can't let you have that artifact."

"I think I already got the message…!" I manage to slide my knife off of Zero's and lurch to the left, attempting to swerve the knife around Zero's and land a solid blow, but he manages to read my move completely and backs away with ease.

"This isn't something a small timer like yourself should try to pawn off. It's a bit too valuable for that sort of thing, I'm afraid."

"Oh, I'm small time now? That's almost funny."

"There's a point where the fun and games have to stop. We're drawing dangerously close to that point… In both our profession _and _in this fight, mind you."

"So you feel the need to take matters into your own hands? For what gain?"

"You wouldn't understand… You _are _just a thief, after all." He chuckles.

"And what does that make you?"

"Haven't I already told you before? I'm Zero. Just Zero."

With that I charge forward – I completely miss my mark with my next strike, and Zero takes the opportunity to send me flying across the room with a strong kick. He then smashes the glass case protecting the artifact – as expected an alarm goes off.

Well _this _has certainly gotten a lot more complicated in the last few seconds, hasn't it?

Zero grabs hold of the artifact and makes his way towards the nearby window – tearing off the blinds and smashing the frame with one massive punch he begins to make his escape. I almost take off after him without a second thought, but I immediately backpedal as to not leave my bag of loot behind.

Zero leaps into the destroyed window frame and moves out onto the fire escape just past it – and with a massive leap he soars over the street below –

I had to pursue. I had to get that artifact – this endeavor would practically have been pointless if I left without it.

I try to leap towards him, determined to get at that artifact no matter what – but with my bag of loot slung over my shoulder I'm just a tad too heavy to complete the jump and he remains just out of my reach, landing safely on the building across from the manor with little issue. I only barely manage to hold onto my hat as I fall roughly two stories and slam into the concrete below.

"I'm afraid this is where we part ways, my Dishwasher Prince." Zero waves, turning away from me.

"I'm not letting you go anywhere-"

In that moment a police car appears on the scene, and an officer steps out with his gun aimed, aiming for Zero up on the roof – he shoots and misses, while Zero, using my revolver, blows his brains out with little effort.

With that he flees into the night –

Leaving _me_ to deal with the dead officer and the horde of others that would soon follow. Shots had been fired – that was enough to sic the whole department on me until I was bleeding out on the ground. I glance around – I have a way out, at least a temporary one. All I had to do was follow the alleyway a few meters to my right and I'd be able to confuse them even if only briefly.

Of course the moment I emerge from said alleyway I found another batch of officers waiting for me.

The escape, from there on, does not go smoothly. At all.

Zero had more or less ensured that he'd get away completely undetected – I had two cars after me now, and ditching them on the ground wasn't going to be an easy task. Usually when it came to big escapes like this I had the rooftops to cover me – but thanks to Zero I was now in a situation that I wasn't prepared for.

This by no means suggests that I'm going to get caught. Oh, I fully intend to get away, my bag of loot intact and without a broken bone.

The side streets do me well – I manage to get out of sight fast enough and efficiently enough that I've got myself a good five second lead on that car. The cops around here were known for being reckless drivers, so the chances of a clean escape so early on were slim. Sure enough, I only manage to make it down to the next block before the siren closes in. At this point they may just decide to run me over - of course I couldn't let that happen, but I had very little means of getting around that. I was unarmed, once again thanks to Zero, and in all seriousness I doubt I can bat away an oncoming vehicle with my ego, regardless of how gargantuan in size it may be.

I dive behind a trash can as the car in front starts to speed up – I kick the trash can off the curb and into the road, causing it to tumble right into the oncoming vehicle's path. The car is forced to break and I dart into an alley, making my way to the other end of the block, essentially going in a complete circle. With any luck, the resulting confusion could provide the time I needed to get away.

But apparently the second car caught a glimpse of me – my bag likely gave away my position in this case. And so the second car appears just in front of me, speeding down the alley with the intent of running me over.

I'm not exactly good at stunt work even _without _a twenty pound bag slung over my shoulder, but in this case I have very little choice in the matter. With a running start I leap towards the wall on my side – I manage to lift myself and the bag and just barely manage to slide my foot into a small indent in the wall. The car is roughly two seconds away from me – with whatever strength I could put into my legs I manage to kick off of the wall, successfully producing the airtime I needed to avoid the car. I take off down the alley in the opposite direction – I had my window. The car I'd just avoided would have to come to a complete stop before resuming its chase and the other car was still effectively neutralized, at least for another forty seconds or so.

I emerge from the alley and take off down the street. At this point I really needed to hit the rooftops, but these streets were too unorganized – I'd have to break into another house if I wanted to pull that off and that just wasn't doable. I dart into another alley and start heading as far away from the action as possible – but at this point I was essentially lost. By now there had to have been more officers on my tail, but at least for the moment could reason out a potential counterattack.

I manage to make it onto another street – three officers on foot are there waiting for me, two behind one car and one in another, and before I can even think of a way around them they open fire. Now I'm actually fairly decent at dodging live rounds from little pea shooters like the standard law enforcement weaponry, even with this bag slung over my shoulder. In fact, back when I was in Russia somewhat had shot at me with a sub machine gun and I lived to tell the tale. The problem _here _was that I couldn't exactly go _back_, which was generally how I got through scenarios like this in the past. But fortunately enough I'd been hit with the least intelligent officers I'd seen so far this evening – I had more than enough cover to hide behind. They were still under the assumption that I was armed and were hiding behind their cars like idiots – I could close in and potentially get around them – granted they had a perfectly good opportunity to shoot me dead once I made it over one of the cars so it was up to my experience to ensure that wouldn't happen.

I manage to close in, tossing a garbage can lid in their general direction – the sudden sound draws their attention away from me for all of an instant. But you see, an instant is all I ever need. I break out into a sprint and holding onto my fedora I slide into place along the side of one of the buildings, successfully avoiding the next round of fire. I can hear more sirens closing in –

Already I find this pretty strange. Granted when an officer shows up dead in action their friends do their damnedest to ensure that the one responsible goes down no matter what, but even then there was a surprisingly large number of officers dispatched to apprehend me. Considering the neighborhood I could only imaging what other atrocities were going on at this very moment, but in all honesty I couldn't bring myself to care at the moment. At any rate, I had a strange feeling that there was more to that artifact than my associate had let on – granted it was very possible that he didn't know all the details himself. But in the end it really doesn't matter – Zero has it, and will probably make a fortune off of it overnight. He might even want to retire.

I once again get moving – I grab a broken section of pipe I'd found on the ground near where I'd landed just moments earlier and toss it towards the officers behind the cars. I vault over the car closest to me and in the process manage to kick one of them squarely in the head. I'm shot at mere milliseconds later, but at that point I've already secured myself a weapon – I hold the second officer behind the car with me at gunpoint.

"Drop it." I speak calmly – but the officer doesn't listen – he aims right at me, prepared to take me down in an instant. It's like they _know _I'm a nonlethal combatant, I swear. No officer, especially not one living in Ueno, would ever risk their lives this definitively.

I don't exactly have much of a choice here – I shoot him, but not dead. I plant a round in his gun arm and immediately rise to my feet and take off – at this point the two cars from the other street have made their way over here and the officers inside were shooting at me from the windows. I adjust my fedora and, seeing a fairly large opening that the completely vacant street just past the small blockade provided, I take off, quickly checking the number of rounds in both the gun I'd pulled off the unconscious officer and the one the other dropped and start shooting at the tires of my pursuers as I move along – I'm not exactly a great shot when it comes to targets moving faster than say a drunk marine on foot, but more importantly I suddenly find myself flanked, as two officers on foot suddenly emerge from a side street – I wasn't exactly cornered, but I was surrounded from nearly all sides.

I duck behind a garbage can and wait out the car. Granted this wasn't exactly great cover from live fire, but I wouldn't be waiting here for very long –

The first car closes in – I take my shot, quickly emerging from behind the trash can and taking a shot at the tire closest to me. Miraculously I manage to land a solid blow and the car goes spinning out of control – I begin to shoot at the officers on foot, at this point firing off warning shots more than anything else. As the second car approaches my trash can is shot full of holes and I'm forced to move away from it –

This was just going to keep on going and going. There would be no end to this – once I took out the next car another would just take its place, and all over something that I didn't even steal. And in the heat of the moment –

…

I remember.

_Tomorrow is Nunnally's birthday. _

_I'm going to be late for Nunnally's birthday party. _

_..._

I take off down the road, not even bothering to check my corners or even verify if I'd hit the other car. I just start running, my eyes frantically scanning the sides of the road –

Come on, come on come on come on there _has _to be a telephone booth around here _somewhere_…!

Consider this Rule four. _Do not break a promise with your adorable little sister. _

I look over my shoulder – sure enough I'm still being chased. I have to shake them right now – I start shooting blindly at the car and manage to crack the windshield – the car still moves forward regardless, but it would seem as though I'd hit the driver and the car was going to spin out of control at any moment –

But no, that would be too succinct. Instead the car hits some sort of a bump and starts moving through the air – spiraling straight towards me.

I roll. I roll like I've never rolled before, and I manage to just barely avoid being airborne road kill. In the moments after I come to a complete stop to gather myself – and only then do I notice that the car had been flipped over.

I run. I run as fast as I could manage, running down the alley closest to me –

But I don't really run fast enough. And when the car explodes I'm sent flying from the shockwave and land face first in a dirty puddle. Somehow my loot bag has stayed intact, but it would appear that my left shoulder has not. So now I'd pretty much completely lost the officers, but now I was wounded considerably.

I sigh. This still wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

I glance around – this section of town seems completely shut down, or at least people are smart enough to be hiding in their homes when things are exploding outside. First things first – I spot a telephone booth across the street. I race over to it without any delay.

I shove a quarter into the slot and pick up the receiver, dialing a number I was all too familiar with. It was somewhat late at night, even so this call would definitely go through. After all, I said I'd be home about a hour from now. Granted that was no longer the case since I'd effectively lost myself in Ueno, which was why it was important that I got this out of the way right now.

The phone rings for around ten seconds before someone on the other end picks up.

"_Hello?" _A tired voice greets me – I immediately feel a whole lot worse about this whole mess, even though at this point I'd already killed at least two people and done more property damage than I could pay for with all the trinkets in my bag. That was the sort of effect my sister's exhausted voice had on me.

"It's me, Nunnally."

"_O-Oh, good evening, Onii-sama." _She very suddenly tries to hide her tiredness but sort of fails in the process – I can't think about how absurdly cute that was at this very moment . I had to make this short.

"Look, I'm going to be late tonight, and I know I said that –"

"_It's okay. Don't worry about it." _She says with a slight laugh. _"But when are you going to come home? Are you going to be here for tomorrow?"_

"Yeah, I promised, didn't I? Don't worry, I'll be home by morning. I swear."

"_Okay. You promised, remember." _ I sigh with relief – Nunnally was usually a bit more distressed about these sorts of things, but she'd had a very long day from what I could gather so she was willing to let it go.

"Yeah, I won't forget. Good night, Nunnally –"

But all of a sudden I hear a second voice in the background – no. No, this went way too smoothly for it to go south all of a sudden.

In a matter of moments my ear is assaulted by the most horrific sound that a human being could ever produce – Kallen Kozuki's voice.

"_Hey Lelouch –"_

"Can't talk right now, I'd love to, believe me, but –"

"_Hey, don't think of hanging up on me, you asshole – I swear to god I'll make you clean the bathrooms twice this time –"_

I'll make this short. I wasn't exactly born in Japan as you may have guessed – neither was Nunnally, for that matter. When we migrated over, we had virtually nothing to us but our names – simply put, the fighting in Russia left us all in a really bad place. Nunnally and I were, however, fortunate enough to be taken in by the Stadtfield family and were allowed to live in the small apartment above a bar they owned. Kallen, their eldest daughter, has essentially been our immediate family ever since. You can probably reason out the rest all on your own.

"Look, I know I'm cutting this real close, I know I'm a selfish bastard and all that, but look, this _really isn't _a good time, Kallen –"

"_Do you have any clue how much you made Nunnally worry? She's been sitting by the phone all night, and she spent all day dropping off food at the school –"_

"Yeah, I get it, but –"

"_The next time you're going to pull an all nighter, tell me first, alright? Or at least don't come up with a bullshit story for Nunnally like you always –"_

"Look, can we have this talk later? I need to get moving."

"_What the hell are you so busy with, anyway?! I had to do your job again today, by the way –"_

"Look…" I sigh with frustration, rubbing my forehead. "Things got really bad. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and right now I'm getting mauled by every cop in Ueno, alright?"

What comes next is a slur of swears that when jumbled together like this sounded like something in a completely foreign language.

"Look, I can get out, so don't tell Nunnally about this, alright? I'll be back as soon as possible –"

With that the phone line suddenly cuts out –

And I turn on the spot –

And I'm shot at.

An officer had shot at me –

But –

He misses my head by a sizable margin, instead taking out my fedora, which promptly falls to the floor.

He…

H-He shot my fedora. He shot my fedora off my head.

…

This bastard…

I'm gonna kill him…!

I turn and pull the trigger immediately, not even really aiming anywhere in particular – only to find that I'm completely out of rounds.

I then get a look at my would-be assailant.

It's a single officer who apparently managed to follow me on foot. It most certainly took skill to pull off something like that.

"Drop the weapon." He states calmly. "In the name of our Lord Charles, I'm placing you under arrest." He once again steadies his pistol. "I won't miss this time."

Ah – wait, this voice –

Ahah.

Ahahahah.

Well I'm certainly fucked now.

He seems to trail off for a moment before he sighs. "…Goddammit, Lelouch. What kind of mess did you get yourself into this time?"

"I swear, listen to me, I swear this wasn't my fault."

This officer, better known as Suzaku Kururugi, the cleanest officer in all of Tokyo, is, believe it or not, a good friend of mine. We met in Russia under less than positive circumstances and we've been friends ever since. Granted that doesn't apply in the slightest when he has to bring me in for manslaughter among other charges.

He rolls his eyes at my comment. "That's likely."

"J-Just listen for a minute – your men are after me for shooting that officer in the street. That wasn't me. This is all Zero's doing."

"I'd bet. Zero hasn't been seen in Ueno in over a year. This place is too easy for someone like him."

"I swear to god – hell, I swear on my life –"

"Clearly you don't have much value for something like that. Drop the gun."

I sigh and consider protesting further, but based on how insistent Suzaku was about these things I decide to do as he says – I drop the gun. I consider reaching for my loot bag, but at this point doing so would be a good way to get shot.

"Now walk towards me."

"Can I at least get my hat-"

"Walk towards me."

I sigh. _Of course_ he was going to go through this whole process. But I knew he knew better – he knew damn well that there was nothing in my fedora. He was just being spiteful.

"Hands in the air." I do as commanded.

"You know," I start speaking, "you could definitely stand to be a bit more elegant about this sort of thing. For example, you could probably –"

"I don't want to hear a damn thing from you." Suzaku interrupts me, his gun still fixed on me as he slowly walks around me, likely attempting to handcuff me.

"Just hear me out. You'll make a much more profound impression if you said something like, 'Suzaku Kururugi commands you – drop your weapon!' or something to that effect."

"It's your sister's birthday tomorrow, isn't it? A shame you'll be stuck in the slammer all night. I'll let you know how the party goes." Suzaku secures a pair of handcuffs around my wrists and latches onto my arm.

"You're not invited."

"Start walking."

Honestly I should've expected this – Suzaku's been stationed in Ueno ever since he became an officer, but more importantly he was essentially the best there was – he was on the fast track to detective status, but even past that he was being considered for high military honors after his performance in both Russia and during the occupation. It only made sense for him to be dispatched on a critical importance call like this one seemed to be.

I start moving – to add insult to injury Suzaku throws my bag of loot over his shoulder and places my fedora on top of my head once more – he probably missed his shot on purpose just for the sake of dirtying my favorite hat.

So what was going to happen now?

Isn't it obvious? I'm going to escape.

"You know, there's a limit to how much of a ruthless ass you can be." I point out something fairly obvious.

"If this train of thought ends with a request to let you go, let me just tell you that I'm not going to listen."

"Ah, right. This has been a pretty long – term dream of yours, hasn't it? To actually catch me doing something and have the opportunity to bring me in yourself. Considering the price that _would _be on my head if I'd actually been suspected of half the things I've actually done you'd probably get that promotion real quick."

"Don't antagonize me. You've got a serious problem and you need a psychiatrist. Whether or not you'll actually get one is up to the court."

"And _you _need a physician. All that spinning can't be good for your joints. It's a miracle you don't get vertigo, you know. Actually, no, more like a biological breakthrough."

"…You're not taking this seriously at all, are you?" Suzaku was a bit too tired to get it completely across, but he was getting awfully annoyed with my attitude. Oh, how easy you are to disgruntle, my friend…

"This is only the seventh time you've tried to pin me with something only to have the charges not stick. Granted I have no idea why you're against stealing back something that was already stolen-"

"You're justifying your crimes. That doesn't make them any lesser crime. People who break the law get arrested. There's no exception."

"And you fully agree with the way this 'law' works?"

"We've had this discussion a thousand times. That isn't my call to make. That's the Emperor's call to make. And I serve the Emperor."

"So nearsighted... You'll never see your dream come true this way."

"It's not like you're making it any easier for me."

I don't really have a response for that. Perhaps he had a point. But it wasn't like I could just stop doing what I was doing.

The walk continues in silence. So he _had _gone after me on foot. That explains why no one else had closed in on us yet. Another peculiarity about Suzaku was that he didn't have his radio with him – he hadn't called in my capture yet and it seemed like he wasn't even going to.

Out of the corner of my eye I try to study him –

And then it finally clicks. He's not even on duty right now. The uniform he's wearing isn't the standard issue uniform, and his pistol –

I recall a very particular law mandated in Ueno. Officers who were off duty generally couldn't be trusted – well, they couldn't exactly be trusted when they were _on _duty either, but that's neither here or there. The point is that all off duty officers are allowed to carry their weapons around, but for security issues they were permitted one round and one round only.

Now, most officers probably ignored this law altogether. But Suzaku was too well rounded for that –

In other words, he was holding me at gunpoint with a pistol that wasn't loaded. He'd blown his only shot on my hat.

And people call my fedora tacky. The damn thing probably just saved my life. Not from Suzaku, mind you. From the combined efforts of Kallen and Nunnally were I to never make it home tonight.

Well, that makes my next move significantly easier.

"I just have one question. Is _that _alright, at least?"

Suzaku sighs. "Go right ahead –"

"How long on average does it take you to figure out that your captive's undone their handcuffs?"

In one swift motion I shake of Suzaku's arm and proceed to head butt him – the force of the strike has a fairly negative effect on me, but as Suzaku is holding my bag he's sent completely off balance.

I retrieve my bag and head off down the street.

"Don't worry, I'll be sure to tell Nunnally you wished her a happy birthday!" I wave goodbye as I sprint down the road toward freedom. In a matter of moments Suzaku is on his feet chasing after me –

And just like this, in a scenario that's larger than life –

It's in a world where such a miraculous escape is possible –

It's in a world like this one, where hope is buried away in the deepest despair –

It's in a world like this one that my story begins.


	2. Peace Eases

_**Author's Note**_

First and foremost I apologize for the tremendous delay on this chapter. Things happened, then more things happened, then even more things happened, and then the website wouldn't let me upload anything, but it's finally here.

At this point a few things might be happening – one, I may attempt to change the rating on this story based on certain developments that may or may not happen. So if this suddenly disappears from the M Rated section you now won't be caught off guard about it. **(At this point this has already happened so disregard this point, thank you.)**

From here on in the chapters will get shorter. I swear. They might get a little longer again as we progress, but this is more or less the last introductory bit I have to get through.

The only other thing I have to mention is that I'm going to be bringing up a certain character in this chapter that might seem like an OC to those of you not familiar with the non-anime Geass stuff. In this chapter I'm going to be introducing Alice the Speed who is actually from the spinoff manga _Nightmare of Nunnally_, who now more closely resembles a clumsy version of Arturia from Fate/Stay Night. Feel free to look her up if you wish. Actually I implore you to as it may or may not become important as this AU develops.

So with that out of the way, please enjoy the chapter. Be on the lookout for minor details that may or may not be extremely important later on.

* * *

_**Chapter 3 : Peace Eases**_

_Lelouch Lamperouge, The Dishwasher Prince_  
_Blasted Tokyo, Shinjuku Prefecture Above Ground_  
_1965, October 24th, 1:50 A.M._

After a long and rather uneventful trek across the wasteland I manage to find myself creeping down the familiar streets of upper Shinjuku without concern – I know these streets well enough to know which routes to take this late at night to the point where I more or less treated the final leg of my journey like a casual evening stroll. I was just glad to be out of that perpetual mess – there was no telling how much longer I could've gone on like that with a wounded shoulder – but now I was mostly okay, having removed the bullet and bandaged the wound on my way back courtesy of a very friendly truck owner who now finds himself in dire need of a truck to own. I'd return it to him provided that I hadn't totaled it three miles away from any form of civilization. Which I had.

Shinjuku always feels nostalgic to me whenever I make my return – it's not as though I'm even gone all that long for any given span of time, though. It was instead nostalgia for the life I used to have back in Britannia. The life I had before everything sort of fell apart at the seams.

Shinjuku is easily the most developed of the prefectures, even if only because it was the area least eviscerated by the nuclear warheads. Shinjuku is roughly two Uenos in size but funnily enough houses half the number of rich folk – Shinjuku is the closest thing to a normal middle class city that Japan has, with the grand majority of its citizens living on decent salaries and _lots _of alcohol. Goods from Shinjuku go for the highest prices and as such Shinjuku has more or less developed its own economy independent from the rest of the country. Naturally, where business is strong organized crime tends to be stronger – and as the rest of the capitol is in its physically segregated state it's incredibly easy to shuttle all the high ranking officers to crack down on crime while earning just enough to warrant doing their jobs effectively. Essentially it's a second New York City, albeit on a much smaller scale.

The streets are clean – but not _entirely _of crime, mind you –the buildings are given some breathing room, the working quarters are at least mostly sanitary, the schools are functional and the murder rates are nearly rock bottom – Shinjuku is a city where you can go to sleep at night and not have to worry about if you'll live long enough to see morning. It's the sort of city where even the Japanese can find some solace in themselves – living above ground in Shinjuku is essentially what all Japanese strive for. Sadly only the rich manage to stay above sea level, but at any rate it is still entirely possible for the pure blooded Japanese man to maintain a lifestyle in this city and this city alone, healthy or otherwise.

This is the one city that no big time thief would dare approach less they desire a death sentence. Ironically enough it's my home. Or at least the closest thing someone like me has to a home.

I know these streets by heart – there's little doubt that I'll get home before three o'clock, although I wasn't sure how difficult it would be sneaking into my own apartment without being detected. Using the front door would just wake everyone up – and that's one thing that I've more or less had to swear that I wouldn't do.

Everyone, by the way, consists of Kallen Kozuki and my little sister Nunnally. As I've already mentioned they're essentially what I've got as family. We live in the three small rooms above the bar Kallen's father owns – and that's about it, really. Granted I've amassed enough of a fortune in my mattress to buy a small house, but doing something so extravagant not only goes against my character but would also cause some very major complications, mainly involving how Nunnally and I aren't actually citizens of _any _country at the moment – but I can go on about that later.

I manage to find my way to my destination without issue. The bar, oddly enough named Seventh Heaven, is tucked away near one of the ends of a side street that was just off the main road – you'd probably pass it a thousand times, but the first time you get a good look at it you'd never miss it ever again. Largely thanks to the neon sign I'd… gradually collected the pieces of overtime and installed myself at no charge.

And if you' wondering what I mean by that then yes, I defaced neon signs all across Tokyo looking specifically for all the letters that made up 'Seventh Heaven' and brought them all back one by one before blackmailing an electrical engineer to hook it all up to the storefront. Easily my proudest pointless achievement.

The sign wasn't lit up at the moment, obviously, but I already know the darkness of this road way too well. I find my way around the building and slip into the alley between the two rows of buildings on this side of the street – we don't have a fire escape or anything to that effect, but that doesn't stop me from scaling the building that the apartment rises over.

The building I was now standing on top of had been vacated a long time ago. These days Japanese folk that sneak out of the tunnels tend to hide out until they get arrested for home invasion or whatever crime the authorities feel like pinning them with. What's interesting is that having this building here helps draw officer attention away from the bar – well, officer attention of the non-spinning sort, at least. It was awfully convenient – officers stop by this building at least once a day and little do they know that there's a pile of stolen loot just on the other side of the road.

I adjust my bag – I've gotten used to running around and making absurd leaps with some heavy weight on me, and at this point I've got it down to a science. It's all in the balance. If you can shift your weight in a perfectly accurate way you can use it to support your muscles instead of having it hinder them. And I do this shit authentically – I don't cheat with mechanical body parts or… whatever it is that makes Suzaku immune to everything but his own stupidity or anything like that –

Judging the distance and the amount of airtime I would have with my bag over my shoulder I take a running leap towards one of the opened windows – this was essentially how I always got myself home. I'd ask Nunnally to leave the window in my room open so I'd be able to get in undeterred. Granted whenever Kallen was angry with me she'd lock all the windows on purpose and I'd be sleeping with pigeons until morning – tonight was fortunately not one of those nights.

Instead, tonight was one of those nights where I misjudge my distance and slip and fall from my window thanks to my injured arm. I end up falling almost a full story before latching myself onto the window just below mine –

The light inside snaps on – and just as I manage to stick my head into the opening I'm met with a dagger to the eye. I don't flinch, naturally because it was pointed at my completely useless eye, but at any rate I'm at least a little bit stunned.

My attacker stops just short of cutting through my eye patch – and she gasps, dropping the knife.

"L-Lelouch!"

I take the opportunity to shift my head to see what exactly had just happened –

Ah, that makes sense.

Completely taken off guard and standing just to my left was Alice, a friend of Nunnally's from school and at the same time a valuable asset to this small family we had going here. Her being here tonight more or less confirmed that Nunnally was more distressed than she'd let on over the phone – and it also verified that I was sticking my head right into Nunnally's bedroom. I try to peer around Alice – Nunnally was still somewhat asleep. She was naturally used to having to sleep through loud sounds so with any luck she'd sleep through this.

"I-I'm so sorry, I had no idea –" Alice stumbles over herself as she tries to express her distress in as formal a way as possible. That was more or less her thing. She spoke like she was a member of the royal family and for the most part tries to act like one – as such she's incredibly easy to tease. Granted this isn't exactly the time for that.

"It's of no concern. You were in the right. I've taught you well."

Alice is about to speak again but suddenly her eyes dart towards Nunnally and she proceeds towards the door. I pull myself through the window and follow her – she closes the door quietly behind me before going off again. Now close enough to her I can see all the signs of fatigue on her face – she was more or less forcing her eyes open at this point. She'd likely been up for almost a full twenty four hours at this point – that was the sort of look she gave me. Granted she did her damnedest to hide it although to no particular avail.

"I was under the impression that you'd show up later than you did and under the circumstances I –"

"Breathe, Alice. Nobody died. It's not that big a deal."

Alice does as she's told. She takes a needlessly deep breath before trying to start talking again. She decides to start explaining why she's here instead of at home – granted that wasn't really the most coherent direction for this conversation to go in but I suppose we had to get it out of the way sooner or later. "Nunnally couldn't get to sleep tonight so she called me. It would seem she had a rough day."

"Was she in school?"

"Yes, although she didn't speak to me much this morning… I had my reserves so I told Kozuki-san to figure out what was wrong… It would appear that the stray cat she was looking after died early this morning."

"You mean Arthur?" I sigh. _Of course_. She wouldn't be losing sleep over her older brother nearly dying of an untreated gun wound, she'd be losing sleep over that god forsaken cat. When it comes to pets and the like I tend to detach myself from them as clearly as possible since they're never around for all that long – but Nunnally isn't the sort of person who can do that kind of thing. She loves all life equally. And while I didn't particularly care for the stray cat that had made a home for itself in the alley out back I knew that Nunnally was likely heartbroken over it. Which therefore made me heartbroken over it, which therefore made Alice heartbroken over it since she tends to never come to any substantial conclusions on matters involving her best friend until I point them out for her.

"She told me you were running late. She thought you'd gotten into some serious trouble and she was beyond stressed about it." She sighs. "I didn't really know what to do, so I sat with her until she fell asleep."

"She probably wanted to you tell her she was worrying over nothing. For girls like Nunnally positive reinforcement can go a long way."

She groans, rubbing her forehead. "Of course… Why didn't I see that before?"

Her eyes wander to Nunnally's door and then fixate on empty space again for awhile – she then looks up at me and her eyes suddenly widen.

"Y-Your arm – are you hurt?!" She apparently had taken notice of the sloppy mesh of gauze wrapped around my shoulder.

"It's fine. It'll heal."

"You should go to a hospital, or at least to Irie-san's clinic. I-If you want I can help you g –"

"Of all the concerns you have right now I should be the least important. Right now you need to think about getting some rest. You've been up far later than you should."

Alice sighs. "But there's no way you can be so sure –"

"Just trust me, alright? I'm not going to drop dead overnight. More importantly, Nunnally will be fine in the morning if you leave her like she is now – I'll check in on her in a few minutes and she'll be fine for tomorrow. You on the other hand are a mess."

Her eyes widen slightly. "D-Do I really look that bad? W-Will Nunnally notice tomorrow?"

"You already have bags under your eyes. Any more strain and she probably will."

"No, no, no – that can't happen...! I can't let her start worrying over me or it's going to start showing on her –" And already she's gone back into a panic. This is Alice in a nutshell – she spends so much time over thinking things and worrying about all the details that she ends up completely missing the big idea and the moment it hits her she melts down.

"Look, you don't have to deliberate over this – at this rate _I'll _end up getting more sleep than you will. Nunnally won't get off your case if you're exhausted for her party tomorrow. Just leave it at this and go home."

"O-Of course. If I have to decide right now, then that would be for the best, I suppose… I-I mean _it _would be for the best – wait, no I was right the first time – "

"Just go home and get some rest."

"R-Right. Have a good night." Alice hurriedly bows politely before heading off down the stairs a little too clumsily. The poor girl was probably running on minimal sleep as it was.

I should probably get this bit out of the way as well – Alice and Nunnally are both students at Ashford Academy, which is easily the best school in Shinjuku as far as academics went. The bulk of the money I make from my heists has so far put her through five years of formal schooling, this year being the first at Ashford – Nunnally and Alice had known each other for quite a while before that, though. In essence, Alice does her best to fill the gap that's left in Nunnally's day to day life – neither one of them have any other close friends really, and are both generally detached from a normal family life. Alice consistently proves that she can help Nunnally feel less alone on a day to day basis, and without her things would be much harder for us in general. Her loyalty is as unwavering as could be – she knows just about all of our secrets and is more or less prepared to take them all to the grave.

In all honesty I forget exactly how it happened. It was something along the lines of Alice having no friends or Alice getting beaten up by another girl at school or Alice falling down a large staircase or Alice getting stuck in a tree – I know that all of these things have happened at one time or another but I don't really know which one the two initially bonded over. All I remember is that I was somehow involved and Alice came to respect me as much as she came to adore Nunnally. And I'm pretty sure the staircase one was actually my fault so it wasn't that –

Case in point Nunnally and Alice became friends when Alice was touched by Nunnally's radiant heart. It was all sweet and fluffy and not really worth going into because you'll definitely see enough of it in action in due time.

I turn around, intending to head back into Nunnally's room –

And then I suddenly get hit with vertigo. I lose my balance in a matter of moments and I hit the wood floor with a thud.

Honestly I expected this would've happened a lot sooner. I usually don't go this long with a largely untreated wound without passing out.

Oh, what am I talking about? The gunshot, of course. No, I didn't fix it up properly, do I _sound_ like I'm a doctor or something? I only got the bullet out and put on the bandages. I didn't even use any septic or disinfectant or whatever it is you're supposed to do to treat wounds like this. I made all that up so Alice would go home without a fuss. Hell, I think the wound's still bleeding. Don't tell me I tricked you too.

At any rate I had to figure out the whole first aid thing and I was going to have to within the confines of the bathroom at the other end of the hall. And for the record, before you get the bright idea to call me out on this, I _did _go to war, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I was a good soldier. Just throwing that out there.

I manage to rise to my feet just long enough to walk another half a foot before losing my balance again. My left side is seemingly weighed down by the wound – I can't put any amount of weight on it whatsoever. It's just too weak. At this point I was physically exhausted beyond even Suzaku-tier boundaries and I largely understood this despite how casually I'd gotten myself into that mess in the first place. It would seem I'd been a bit too acrobatic this evening, between getting out of Ueno and getting back here. I'd probably opened my wound just from the jump to Nunnally's window. I had no more than fifteen minutes before I'd probably pass out completely.

Suddenly I hear a door opening behind me – had I woken Nunnally with all my noise?

I manage to prop myself up against the nearby wall – turning around I'm greeted by a half asleep Kallen, now leaning against her door with her arms crossed, looking down at me. Her hair was messier than usual and she was wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Don't ask me why she feels the need to sleep in something so clearly suggestive when she's not even dating anyone.

"So _this_ is what was going on." She groans. "What did you break this time?"

"Nothing too important. My shoulder's seen worse before." I grunt, trying to pull myself up. "You should've sent Alice home earlier. She didn't look much better than I do."

"I didn't know when you were coming back." She says with a yawn. "And you know I can't talk to that girl. She's not approachable."

"Don't be so cruel." The moment I manage to get myself up on one foot I lose all feeling in it and crash again. "She's just a little anti-social. You put up with me just fine."

"I don't need to worry about you having a nervous breakdown. But you know, putting up with this instead gets a little tiresome after awhile, you know?" Kallen sighs, moving from her doorway heading down the hall and into the bathroom. She emerges a few moments later with a first aid kit. She wordlessly sits down on the floor next to me cross-legged and pries open the rusted latches on the kit.

"Did you at least remove the bullet this time?" She produces a needle and thread along with a small bottle of what I assumed was disinfectant.

"Come on, you really think I'd let that slip a second time?"

Kallen more or less rips the gauze off of the wound – I manage to get a good look at it this time. Even I could tell it was worse off than it would've been had I gotten it attention awhile ago, but at least it wouldn't keep me out of the game for too long.

Kallen begins to work on my arm – the stinging feeling of the damp cotton ball she applies to the wound that I'd familiarized myself with long ago feels almost welcoming.

"You're lucky I haven't gotten any sleep. I'm really mad, you know."

"You sure sound like it."

"Do you have _any _idea how hard it was to convince Nunnally that you were going to come home in one piece?" Upon cleaning out the wound Kallen begins stitching it up.

"Impossible, apparently, since you had to rely on Alice to work things out for you."

"You're still underestimating how much work I do around here."

"What, you mean you do more than stir drinks and yell at me to clean your dishes? Since when?" Kallen gives the thread a slight jerk, creating just enough pain to get her point across. "I was joking. You need to invest in a better sense of humor."

"You're in no position to be telling anyone what they need."

"Fair enough, but at least know when I'm being serious and when I'm not."

"I know that you're not being serious. You're just being rude."

"Oh, so is it illegal to be rude around –" I shut myself up. At least for the moment I was at Kallen's mercy. Whatever logic I tried to apply here could only get me in worse trouble than I already was in. And in the event that you can't read her all that well I assure you that I'm one clever pun away from sleeping on the bar downstairs.

Kallen's rather skilled at this sort of thing – she was a nurse at a very young age working voluntarily at the Shinjuku hospital after the occupation began to help nurse wounded Japanese men back to decent health, only to watch them go back out on the streets and be thrown into the tunnels. Witnessing the harsh reality of it firsthand was part of what shaped her into who she was today – unfortunately it had a more negative effect on her younger brother, but that's another story I'd rather not get into.

Eventually Kallen finishes bandaging up the wound. I try to pull myself up again – I'm still incredibly wobbly, but at least I could get myself off the floor and not have to worry about any more potential blood loss getting in my way.

"You're probably going to want to check up on Nunnally, but you should probably just go straight to bed. If you try to walk around too much carrying that bag around you're going to pull something. I don't think I need to explain how having that thing slung over your shoulder made this worse –"

"I get the idea…" I reaffirm my stance and reach for my bag – but Kallen grabs it herself.

"You know what, forget it. I'll do it myself." She drags the bag along the floor towards my room. "It's your sister's birthday. I might as well make something of it this year."

Any normal person would just leave it at that, but Kallen was being unusually helpful at the moment. Despite having been a nurse temporarily she was possessed by the idea of people doing things on their own without any real help. She feels that walking someone through life makes them a worse person for it, no matter how small a gesture may be. This was out of character. Even though she was half asleep something was clearly eating her.

"You got another letter, didn't you?"

Her silence confirms my guess.

"So how _is _your devilish little brother? Is he the emperor of Japan yet?"

Kallen shoots me a rather hazy look – I couldn't really figure out what she was trying to get across with it as her eyes were only half open. "Nothing's really changed. He's still holed up in Narita. He'll stick with the movement to the end – that much I know."

Kallen's brother Naoto, no older than fifteen years old, is a child revolutionary – trench-coat, hachimaki and all. After the occupation began the less fortunate Japanese children who had learned to read and write took to plotting resistance movements against Britannian law enforcement. Car bombings, attempted assassinations, protesting in the streets, mass looting – the 'Yamato Youth League' as it's come to be referred to as collectively seeks to throw Tokyo into absolute chaos for the sake of establishing a 'free' state. It works about as well as it did for the French, I assure you. But they're children – they're young, they're persistent, they can only see in black and white and have no perception of their place in the world or of the people they need to protect.

Naoto is far too old to be following such a blind ambition. And as such he's one of the highest ranking members of the Youth League. On a daily basis he risks his life for nothing, sending his sister letters periodically to let her know he's still breathing. Overtime Kallen's tried to convince herself that he actually is fighting for something, and as such her brother becomes a very dangerous topic of discussion.

But Naoto is a child. He will always be a child. And children who try to grow up too fast are the first to be cast into Hades. I've come to hate him to the very core in recent times, and unfortunately enough Kallen is well aware, so there's always a little friction between us that we could certainly do without.

"Until the end of the movement? Or until the end of his life? I highly doubt the former will come first."

"Let's not talk about this." She says with a sigh.

"Will I have to tell you not to send him money tomorrow when you reply?"

"I get the idea. Just drop it already." She pushes my bag through my doorway and then heads back in my direction towards her room. "I'm going to bed. Don't forget I have to cook tomorrow."

"I thought you liked cooking."

"When I'm not getting paid to it's not as novel an idea." Without offering any form of a goodnight she opens the door to her room and closes it.

Using the wall as a sort of crutch I manage to work my way through the open doorway –

And this. This is my room. It takes me a few moments to realize that – I don't really sleep here often enough for it to really be considered my room. In all honesty I'd prefer that Kallen would rent it out to someone who would put it to better use and actually pay for it, but Nunnally was insistent against that idea so I've ended up using it as storage for things I don't manage to sell. There wasn't anything all that extravagant in the room aside from a few rare vases and the like and they weren't arranged in any particular order or in any coherent fashion. Essentially the goods were packed against one end of the room and my bed and closet took up the other half.

I make my way over to the bed without much issue, not even bothering to close my door all the way. More or less the moment my head hits my severely underused pillow I pass out.

When it comes to this sort of thing I manage to hold out until the very end. But when I hit the very end my crashes tend to be about as inelegant as possible.

I always set my limits very high. But once I hit them I'm afraid I have simply nothing left.

Sometimes I wonder – is that enough? Is it satisfactory to stop at your limit? People talk of transcending their mortal limits, but such talk is hearsay at best. But even so –

What will happen if the time comes where I'm forced to say that I'm at my limit? That I've gone too far? Tonight was an exercise in the subject, that's for sure, but there have been far worse nights to take into consideration. What will happen if I can simply go no further?

In all honesty, I accept that there has to be an end point to this lifestyle of mine at some point. Perhaps sooner rather than later. I certainly couldn't keep getting beat up like this – otherwise I'd eventually become so physically inept that I'd be of no use to anyone. Not even to Nunnally. And I can't have that.

For now this works. For now this can be my normal. For now this can last. But what if one day I wake up and it doesn't anymore?

I pray that such a day will never come.

* * *

_1965, October 24th, 12:15 P.M._

_He looks down at my shriveled form with both pity and disgust. _

"_Can't you even form a fist? It's amazing how far you've come with so little ability…" He adjusts his fedora before he kicks me squarely in the stomach. _

_All the while I'm desperately reaching out – reaching out for help that would never come. _

_No, instead I had to help myself. I had to reach out to a solution – for a way out. And so I feebly rise to my feet and remember – I remember that time I had to point that cold piece of metal between a man's eyes and –_

_I aim – I aim the revolver at the man. The grip is so familiar – I hold it as though I've fired it a thousand times. Yet I've only…_

"_Ah… I see. You can't defend yourself, yet you can fire a gun." He steps forward and I shoot – but I miss completely, and in another moment I'm on the floor again, my revolver cast aside._

"_Are you going to die here?"_

_What little fire I have left in me fuels a response. "…No… I…" But I can't speak above a whisper._

"_No, no you won't. Or so you can say… No, we never give into something so final as 'dying'. We're too mortal for that –"_

"_I… I have to… I have to protect… Nunnally… Even if I break every bone in my body…!" I try to stand, but my body is simply too weak to move. _

"_Ah…" His voice and expression soften. "Perhaps there is merit to your struggling after all… Indeed, that's always how it is for people like us. No matter what there's always someone you have to protect… And you can't leave them behind, no matter what." _

_He then adjusts his fedora once more – and then extends his hand towards me. "Perhaps we can make a man out of you yet."_

_In a moment of weakness, I grab hold of his hand and –_

And I wake. What stirred up that old memory I will never know, but –

I wake to find someone standing over me – long black hair more or less in my face, bright yellow, almost catlike eyes that you could swear glowed like the moon –

It was Nunnally, wide awake and in notably good spirits. It still puzzles me to this day how she ended up with all the dominant genes in the family, complexion included. I got stuck with brown hair and a really washed out appearance, but hey, I can deal with it, and more points for Nunnally doesn't bother me much.

She stares at me for a few moments – and then she smiles warmly.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" She asks innocently.

"You don't look like you particularly care if you did."

She giggles. "I'm just glad you came home."

My eyes suddenly widen "Oh, about Arthur –"

"We buried him already. You wouldn't have wanted to be there, trust me."

"Oh, is Alice here already?"

"No, Kallen buried him with me."

"And she didn't get me up for it?" Had hell frozen over?

Nunnally shakes her head. "She said you worked really hard yesterday and that you needed rest."

I call bullshit. "Did she now?"

Nunnally smiles in response. "She said I should be proud of you. For all the work you do."

In the hallway outside I hear a loud crash. Nunnally immediately moves from my side and exits my room into the hallway, looking down towards the bathroom.

She gasps. "K-Kallen, are you okay?!" She bolts down the hall. I can faintly hear her voice. "What happened with the shower curtain? That's never happened before… Were you –"

"It's okay…" I can only barely make out her voice, but Kallen's embarrassment was ever so apparent. "…just get out."

And I laugh. I laugh a flamboyant laugh that I'd trademarked for moments like these.

I though you knew by now, Kallen. You can't trust Nunnally with such valuable information and expect her to keep it from me.

Today certainly had promise –

And so we celebrated Nunnally's birthday – it was only myself, Kallen, and Alice, but in Nunnally's head she was having an early dinner with a congregation three times its actual size.

The party is as simple as all the parties we had were – Kallen's freshly cooked Italian food evaporates before the first hour is up, and then right away Nunnally wants to open her presents. I 'bought' her a set of crystal paperweights I happened to spot in the manor last night that I had Kallen wrap in the hours before the party, while Kallen got her a sweater she apparently forced her dad to buy for the occasion. Alice meanwhile apparently has no perception of what the budget for a birthday present should be and so had bought Nunnally an embroidered necklace that easily could've gone for a hundred bucks on the market. Alice usually never smiles, but Nunnally was so happy with the gift that she could barely contain herself.

Dessert as usual consists of sweets Nunnally and Alice picked out at the only shop in Shinjuku that actually sold sweets. For the most part they were sugary Italian things that Britannia had more or less adopted into its dessert culture. I never really partake in this portion – Nunnally usually wharfs them all down while Kallen tries to get at what isn't immediately absorbed into my sister's stomach. Alice is never fast enough to get at any of them, but Nunnally always sets some aside to share with her. Even on her own birthday.

After the actual party is said and done, Nunnally drags Alice into her room to do who knows what while Kallen more or less prepares my workload for the rest of the day. Kallen never really gets to enjoy these things as much as she'd potentially like to since she still has to run the bar, which gets more than enough traffic in the middle of the day from overworked Japanese men who mostly have jobs down in the tunnels. I try to make things a little easier for her by doing a bit more than usual. Not that she ever visibly notices or cares.

I take the opportunity in-between events to get some rest. I sit myself down in a less active corner of the bar and rub my eyes – I was still exhausted at least my shoulder wasn't about to fall off anymore.

Today was, all things considered, a good day. At least Nunnally's spirits had improved overnight – I suppose I could let myself rest easy for the time being…

And as I'm sitting there, slowly nodding off, literally out of nowhere, a soft sound creeps into my ear –

"_Nyoho…_"

I bolt up immediately, doing everything I can to suppress a scream while at the same time knocking my chair over –

I turn around and my sudden state of alarm more or less evaporates immediately.

Shoulder length orange hair, brown eyes, that cat like face – it was Shirley Fenette, back to annoy me senseless once again.

"Woah, were you seriously sleeping?" She laughs. "Sorry Lulu, I thought these were supposed to be your peak hours."

Shirley Fenette is quite possibly the strangest girl I've ever met. As a sixteen year old high school student she's almost revolutionarily not self centered and doesn't make an even remotely big deal out of herself. As is the case with Alice she also attends Ashford Academy but is a third year student and has very little contact with Nunnally. She's part of the school's swimming team and is apparently one of the most sought after girls on the campus. She hasn't had a boyfriend for what I've been lead to believe is six years and shows no interest in any of the boys her age. No, instead she comes here on a constant basis and talk to me about some of the most mundane things in the world. This is factoring out the constant amount of teasing she subjects me to – if I weren't technically part of the working class and I had the patience for stupid stuff like this I might not be so reluctant to have to see her as often as I do. And no matter how often she shows up her visits never get any less spontaneous or any less annoying.

My heartbeat slows down to normal levels and I fix my chair before sitting back down. "Do you not have school today or something?"

"You sound happy to see me." She then sits down in the seat right across from me and proceeds to stare at me with her almost childlike curiosity apparent in her gaze. She furrows her eyebrows for a moment and frowns. "Rough night?"

"You could tell?"

"You're all stiff. And your eyes aren't what I'd call 'open'."

"So I take it you came here for something?" I get right to the point – Kallen was going to show up any minute to have me start working and I wanted the time I had to pass out and not worry about anything. Normally I'd put up with her antics but today I was a tired adult as opposed to a bored adult.

"It's your sister's birthday, right? I came by to celebrate."

"No you didn't. You stopped by because you knew I'd be here today no matter what."

She narrows her eyes, smiles mischievously, and makes that god forsaken noise again. "_Nyohoho_… Figured me out, did you?"

"If you're just going to do this today I suggest you leave."

"Come on, can't you be a little less grim? You're no fun at all, are you?" She punches me in the shoulder – yes, the shoulder with the only recently closed up wound. Yes, the shoulder that hurt more right now than it had last night. I'm unable to mask the pain in any way – I clearly wince and shudder at her touch.

Almost immediately Shirley's playful demeanor completely vanishes. She grabs my shirt and forcefully unbuttons enough of it so she can get a look at the wound she was certain was there –

"Geez, that looks really nasty. You could've told me you had this, you know." She very lightly touches the bandages this time – her expression is cloudy. She's clearly feeling a little guilty.

"Like you would've listened." I try to play off the severity but she doesn't buy it at all. Once again – by far the strangest girl I've ever met. It's like one moment she's putting in fifteen percent and the next she's putting in a hundred and ten.

And what's even stranger is that she doesn't even question what kind of a wound it was. She just lets the subject go after that, essentially minding her own business. After a few lingering moments she backs off and I take the opportunity to button my shirt.

"Well…" She sighs before standing and stretching. "If you're really that out of commission I guess I shouldn't bug you."

"How nice of you." I say with a light yawn. I almost consider leaving her with that note, but I figure, what the hell, I might as well return her sudden courtesy. "…If you want to at least leave here with something, go check in back. Unless Nunnally and Alice went through them all, there should be some sweets left."

Shirley smiles in response. "I'm good. But thanks, Lulu."

For a few moments my eyes meet hers. I can't really tell what emotion she's giving off right now – but then again I really shouldn't care all that much. She was just some adolescent kid who bugged me every once and awhile.

At this point Kallen calls me from the other room – I have to start working now. It would seem I've blown the bulk of my downtime talking to Shirley.

"I'll be around." Shirley says before suddenly vanishing from view.

With that she's gone –like she'd never been there to begin with. I know she's on a swimming team but there's a point where I wonder if she's a professional track runner in secret. I sigh – concerning myself with her isn't healthy. The less I think about her the better. She's in a realm entirely different from the one I live in. Although it's moments like the one we just shared that make me question that logic. It's maddening.

With that behind me I once again take to my day job – well, it wasn't as much a day job as it was my job all day long, although given how often I've ditched it to go thieving it's more appropriate to call it that.

If you haven't figured it out by now I'm a dishwasher – I clean the dishes that Kallen's hungry customers dirty with their bio degradable filth and get paid so little that it still shocks me to this day that Kallen doesn't get why I do what I do – I'd probably have enough money by the end of the month to by myself little more than a slice of half eaten ham if I took the dishwashing in stride. At this point I honestly just do it so I don't have to clear out of the apartment whenever I piss Kallen off – although I have a feeling that one of these days that's going to end up happening anyway.

Because really, how is 'but I'm your favorite dishwasher' strong enough grounds for an argument? The moment I push too many of her buttons at once I'm out of here. But at least I could get on her father's good side if it ever came to that. Granted I don't think that would help me all that much –

Come to think of it, with all these negatives, why the hell _am _I washing these dishes right now?

Ah, right, because leaving Kallen to do all the work by herself isn't classy. And if there's one thing a high class thief must be, it's classy. That and Nunnally would guilt trip me to the moon and back. And saying rejecting Nunnally isn't exactly something that the human mind is capable of doing. In another thousand years, perhaps, but as we are now we're not sophisticated enough.

The worst part about washing dishes is probably how utterly simple it is. For someone like me, whose mind has to constantly be on the move and planning new and more elaborate heists and occasionally a more and more perfect excuse for why I'm never home dishwashing is so horribly mundane. There's absolutely nothing interesting about it. We have machines for this now, at least the last time I checked. I can only wipe a dish clean so many ways, and there's no ultimately uber efficient way to do it – it's just a matter of cleaning the least interesting thing I could possibly think of – at least if I were washing forks I could pretend I was going to go kill things with them afterward. But with dishes – the most I could do was fantasize about smashing them against the wall.

But yes, in the event that you were paying attention last time you may recall that Zero referred to me as a 'dishwasher prince' – yes, your suspicions are correct, Zero does indeed know me personally, hence why I've been designated that nickname. The only problem is that _I _don't know _him _personally. He could easily be one of Kallen's customers, he could be one of the students from Ashford that come by regularly despite being underage, he could even be the homeless guy who's always out on the street asking our customers for chump change. That's why I hate Zero so much – because he has no identity besides 'Zero'. And because of that I can't act like I'm a better human being than he is.

I find myself relatively undisturbed as I work. For the most part Kallen would always bug me about something while I was on the job – mainly because she usually had no other opportunity to yell at me about things since I was almost never around. Almost a full hundred percent of the time her issues amounted to menial things that she could easily bug Nunnally or even Alice about, but to some extent it was likely easier for her to talk to me – I never really sugar coat things, and Kallen is the sort of person who prefers to hear the cold, heartless truth about things up front. If she has a stupid idea in her head she'll come to me just to hear me tell her so to her face. As much as she avoids talking about Naoto when I'm around she appreciates it a lot more than she lets on.

I'd assume that this time around she had decided to lay off this time because she'd have to directly question what I was doing last night – the less she knows about the jobs I take the better, and for the most part she understood that. Showing up at her front door with a bullet hole in my shoulder probably answered all the questions she would have. And while she openly objects to my thieving tendencies, whenever I come home with enough money to pay the property tax on the bar for another month and have the scars it took to acquire it she keeps her mouth shut. With the right idea in mind I couldn't say, though.

I manage to blow through half an afternoon's work in about thirty minutes. There was a shockingly small number of dishes despite the party happening on top of the usual weekend traffic –

Of course the moment I start to appreciate the little things the whole day goes downhill almost immediately.

I hear a customer let themselves in – Kallen doesn't greet them like she would normally greet a customer. And once I hear a set of cold, lifeless footsteps approaching me I can only imagine the terror that lies in wait mere feet away from me, as though the grim reaper himself was breathing down the back of my neck. With what little hope in my heart slowly slipping away I try to focus on the dishes, but to no avail – the hunter had become the hunted, and now the hunted would be preyed upon by the most heartless of demons, so infernal that even Solomon himself would shudder at the mere thought of its gruesome image.

So yes, Suzaku was off duty and had stopped by the bar to see me. If that wasn't what you took away from all of that you need to pay attention to context clues. Or in this case the lack thereof. In any case, at least he had the decency not to show up for the party after the stunt he pulled last night.

"I see you're still up to the usual stuff." He tries to open casually, but unfortunately it's impossible for him to act casual under even normal circumstances.

I continue to clean dishes, not even remotely acknowledging his presence. After several seconds have gone by and he's mere moments away from saying something else I call out to Kallen. "There's a homosexual in my kitchen. _Why _is there a homosexual in my kitchen?"

"He let himself in." She replies.

Suzaku sighs with frustration. Once again, it takes so little to get him started it's a wonder he's on the force.

At that moment Nunnally comes in out of nowhere, poking her head into the doorway. "Oni-sama, what's a homosexual?"

Suzaku's taken completely off guard by her sudden appearance. I only barely manage to contain my smile. Nunnally was as familiar with Suzaku as I was – she teased him almost as much as I did, although in a notably different context. "It means he's in love with another, doubtlessly much more attractive male."

With a squeal Nunnally runs off. "Alice! Oh, where's Alice?! Alice, you'll never believe –"

"Nunnally, wait –" Suzaku tries to reach out for her but she's well out of reach by the time he can get anywhere near her. Nunnally was too fast even for Suzaku to catch, especially once she'd hatched a brilliant scheme to humiliate someone.

"Ah – homosexuals do not have speaking rights in my kitchen." I cut him off.

"Would you cut this out already –" Ah, but this, my friend, is something that you've had coming for the last seventeen hours. _No one _shoots my fedora and gets off easy. _No one_.

"Kallen, I hope I don't have to remind you about my policy regarding homosexuals in my kitchen."

"Yes, yes I _do _know about your policy. Granted that isn't _your _kitchen by any stretch of the mind." Kallen sighs. "Look, if he pays for a drink will you just talk to him?"

"I might."

Suzaku sighs. "Do you serve beer?"

Kallen snorts. "Of course we serve beer. We'd be out of business if we didn't serve beer."

"Then give me one of those."

"Don't even bother. He's not going to drink it anyway, just make him pay."

Suzaku sighs. "Look, I just need to talk about what happened last night."

"As much as I'd love to hear about –"

"I know it wasn't you, alright? The officer in front of the manor survived his injury. He verified that Zero was on the rooftop and that Zero had shot him."

"As I explained ever so clearly to you last night. But no, Ueno is too small time for someone like Zero. It has to be poor, mostly innocent Lelouch who broke his code for no apparent reason whatsoever."

"I get it, alright –"

"Oh, do you? That's news to me."

"I'm sorry I tried to arrest you – wait, no, you're not up in arms about that, are you?" He tries to rephrase his apology before suddenly landing on a replacement. "I'm sorry I blew a hole in your hat."

"And?"

"And… I'm sorry I hit you the other day in Shibuya Park. Because you didn't break into the cash register in the food cart. Even though you were definitely going to."

Well, just for your insincerity I'm going to make this even more of a quagmire for you. Don't act as though you weren't warned. "You're sorry you _hit_ me? You didn't 'hit' me."

"Oh? Then what _did _I do?" Suzaku sighs with frustration.

When in doubt, always resort to stock 'Suzaku is an acrobatic freak' insults. "You didn't _hit_ me – you _spun_ at me. There's a sizable, acrobatically oriented difference between the two. And if you can't be bothered to remember –"

"Then alright, I'm sorry I _spun _at you the other day in Shibuya Park. Is that satisfactory?"

"There's a point where all delusions fail. But yours continues to plague me like a bad itch. I suggest you go contract amnesia or something. We'd all be better off if your godlike tendency to jump to conclusions were dead and buried someplace far away."

"Alright, look, I know I was in the wrong, but that doesn't give you any right –" But before Suzaku can complete his sentence a loud crashing sound suddenly violates my ears.

I finally turn around. Suzaku has been knocked over and had crashed into the cabinet just to my side. In the doorway stood an enraged Alice, glaring daggers and the poor homosexual's crumpled form and behind her Nunnally was gawking at the scene like she would at a car crash. Fortunately Suzaku hadn't broken anything important – that being any of the dishes or anything of potential value that I'd left on the counter – but the same couldn't be said for his back.

It was apparent that Alice had leapt at him with a running kick. I could only imagine the reason why.

"Stay away from Lelouch." She growls.

Oh, now it made sense. It would seem Alice took that homosexual joke a little too seriously, and now she was coming to my defense. How noble of her. I should probably tip her the next time I have her do errands for me.

Oh, now would be a good time to mention that Alice was freakishly strong. She was fast enough and skilled enough to overpower a man twice her size. Suzaku would not enjoy standing up after taking one of Alice's kicks completely out of nowhere. As you can clearly see Alice was useful in just about every situation.

Mere moments later her eyes widen. "S-Suzaku-san, are you alright? D-Did I kill him?!" And there was the meltdown.

Nunnally gently rubs her shoulders. Immediately upon her touch Alice latches onto her arm. "It's okay, at the most he's just unconscious." Nunnally tries to reassure her to some success. She then glances at me.

I take that as my cue to say something. "Good work, Alice. Any longer and he may have tried to have his way with me –"

"_Shut up_." Suzaku's muffled voice interrupts me.

For the sake of leaving out all the pointless fluff I'll jump ahead to when I'm standing just outside the bar, seeing Suzaku off. Long story short his back wasn't broken, much to everyone's dismay, and I had to explain to Alice that Suzaku was in fact not a raging homosexual aimed on kidnapping me. Although in context she had a hard time believing that.

"So are you satisfied now?" Suzaku asks somewhat sarcastically.

"You know I won't be satisfied until you stop trying to arrest me."

"We both know that's not going to happen. It's your own fault, though – you keep getting in with the wrong crowd."

"Haven't I already explained this? I _am _the wrong crowd."

"Look, we're getting to the point where I can't keep letting you off for all the small stuff. Even though you didn't kill anyone you still resisted arrest and on top of that you attacked several officers. I'm supposed to bring you in, all judgment aside."

"Oh, right, I forgot. You're trying to make it big. In a society that treats your nationality like a crumpled dollar someone pissed on."

"If I'm going to start impressing people I can't keep letting my targets escape."

"Then target someone else. Simple as that."

"But you see -"

"Then give up."

"What?"

"Give up your dream. Give up this whole concept of changing the world one step at a time. The world changes faster that you can even blink – I don't know how many times I have to tell you this, but you're going to give up everything you have and get nothing back."

"You don't know that. It's impossible for you to know that. Even if the system is corrupt if the system can be shown a better alternative things can change without anyone having to resort to violence. You don't need a war to progress." No, you only need war to eliminate the people trying to _keep _you from progressing.

Suzaku's aspirations were far too grand for any real application. His dream is to change society from the inside. To reform the law without overturning it. To climb his way to the top and defeat his enemies without ever firing a single shot. The war in Russia had even more apparent an effect on him than it did on me.

"You clearly don't appreciate how the law works. But you're never going to change it if you keep following it so religiously, no matter how hard you try. One of these days you're going to get yourself killed and it won't amount to anything."

What Suzaku could never understand was that people who try to change the world always die in vain. And in the end no matter what side they were on no one ever misses them.

"You're one to talk."

"Excuse me?"

"You're not being careful enough anymore. If you haven't noticed the ground's shrinking beneath your feet. More and more arrests are being made every day – and when they take you down, what do you think will happen to Kallen? To Nunnally?"

"I'm doing what I have to do."

"But you don't _have _to do _any _of this. _You're _the one who needs to give up this whole thieving thing before you lose a hell of a lot more than just your life."

"Can't you see that we have no other options? I have no rights in any country and there's only so much Nunnally can do once she's out of school. It's either live outside the system or go straight to the guillotine."

"There's always an alternative to thievery. I'm not sure what it's going to take to make your realize that, but someday soon you're going to have to accept it."

"You know how it works. It's either play it their way or go have fun in the tunnels. I have no options. And soon enough you won't have any either."

"The more you say that the less true it sounds."

"You don't sound so convinced."

Suzaku doesn't elicit a response for that – instead our conversation is cut entirely short when a car pulls up on the side of the road that Suzaku was evidently waiting for. From the brief glance I manage to steal I can tell that there's another officer inside. "I won't be back anytime soon." He decides to use that as his goodbye.

"I'll be sure to throw a party later."

With that Suzaku disappears into the vehicle – a black car, no smaller than a sedan. Definitely not a cop car at any rate, yet officer in that car was clearly on duty. But why the secrecy? It's not as though officers are being targeted on sight in Shinjuku. Unless there was something that made them believe otherwise…?

How puzzling –

In that moment something small suddenly bashes against the top of my head – something had fallen from above and landed right on top of me.

I look down –

An orange?

As I stare down at it another suddenly hits me with significantly more force –

This time I look up. There's someone standing on the roof of the bar. Wasting no time I make my way towards the alleyway and despite my physical condition I manage to get myself to the top without much issue.

Standing in the shade of the next building over is a man in a business suit wearing a fedora much like my own with a sack filled with oranges set down next to him. He has his hands in his pockets so he's clearly not threatened and he's hiding his face under the fedora so I couldn't get a good look at him.

There's only one other man on earth who wears a fedora and manages to look classier than I do in it.

"I was gonna dump the whole sack on you if that didn't get your attention. Remember that the next time you get lost in thought, alright?"

It was my associate – the one I do the odd jobs for. The man who taught me the basics of thievery and even gave me my prized fedora –

Ranked third among the Night Riders, the master thieves of Tokyo – Jeremiah Gottwald, the Duke of Orange. Leader of the Scarecrows, an organized crime syndicate that steals from major businesses and burns down plantations to breathe life into independent Japanese businesses while raking in thousands of dollars from stolen goods and manipulated stocks.

This point is probably worth elaborating on – the three highest ranked, most wanted master thieves in Tokyo were revered as the Night Riders. Each Night Rider is known by an alias that any thief worth his salt would know by heart.

Aside from Jeremiah there are two others –

The second highest was Kaguya Sumeragi, better known as Killer Queen. Her main deal is assassination – she's killed every member of the Britannian nobility to ever set foot outside of Shinjuku. On top of this she's one of the only surviving members of the Japanese aristocracy and more or less can't be touched by the law whatsoever, having set herself up in Yamato, the center of the Japanese Resistance. I knew her personally during the time _before _she became Killer Queen. And I most certainly didn't think she had it in her.

The highest, rather obviously, was Zero. Zero is only ranked higher than Killer Queen because he has no connections, no gang, no relatives in the Britannian royal family as far as anyone knew – Zero is a one man show and time and time again outperforms any force ignorant enough to conspire against him. Other thieves, law enforcement, even the military has gone up against Zero and has come back with nothing.

Jeremiah in particular was known for being able to balance stealth with brute force almost harmoniously – I can generally meet his standards on the subject, but ultimately I'm not quite as good. My limits are far more grounded in reality than Jeremiah's seem to be, and the authorities were well aware of that. Jeremiah's the only one of the big three that they have a shot at getting to, and so they've been working tirelessly trying to take him down. He's a shadow – he has no relatives from what I could tell, no woman, no children. He was on his own. He was effectively an embodiment of the very thing Britannian society seeks to destroy.

But despite that he managed to find himself here, in Shinjuku? Already? Jeremiah can't even trust his own shadow – how did he make it here in less than twenty four hours without drawing attention?

"This is unexpected." I reply. "I figured it'd be at least another week before you'd open your bedroom window, let alone skip town."

"Wasn't easy. But the cops are still trying to get their shit together, so it worked out." He adjusts his hat. "I've got to thank you for drawing these college kids off my trail, Lelouch. That last one tracked two of my boys all the way to my doorstep. Supposedly he tried to call the head of the Vice department in Shibuya but got no answer, so he was going for a contact he had in Ueno. Might've been your friend Kururugi for all we know. At any rate, I at least know I taught you well."

"So was the Vice captain out at lunch or something?"

He grins. "You should really get with the times. There _is _no head of the Vice department in Shibuya. At least not anymore. We got to him seventy-two hours ago. Caught him trying to pick up a girl at Tamaki's bar."

"Ah, so Tamaki still hasn't been paid off yet. How interesting. Maybe he's actually loyal after all."

"Tamaki's not brave enough to turn on me now." He laughs. "He's got too much stock in his business. He knows turning on me means it'll go up in smoke. He'll be good."

"So then how did you manage to get here? Were all the eyes off you last night?"

"Something like that. Lost a man or two trying to hop the checkpoint. Looks like they _were _pretty well prepared for a sneak attack."

It then clicks – perhaps the authorities here were on high alert because Jeremiah was entirely off their radar now. As far as the authorities knew Jeremiah had the means to take down any rank of officer that he wanted and was as dangerous as could be, and with his gang backing him he was almost untouchable. Granted what they didn't know was that the Scarecrows were slowly falling apart – the government had tracked down a sizable number of the gang members and blackmailed them into selling Jeremiah out. Fortunately most of them knew nothing while the rest we got to before it was too late.

"So what're you here for? You have another job for me already?"

"You get right to the point, huh?"

"I don't think I need to remind you that I've got my own stuff to take care of."

"I know… And what's about to happen is probably gonna catch even you off guard – but I need you to do this for me. And… Well, I'll be blunt. Things are getting a little tight these days."

I grin. "So it's finally caught up with you, huh?"

"Not my age, Lelouch." He sighs. "I can't keep the Scarecrows going for much longer."

"Ah, I see. So you need to keep people you know you can trust close."

"That's the right idea."

"…Look, as much as I'd love to help –"

"You're not a bodyguard. And I'm aware of that. But you need to hear me out."

"… Go right ahead." Despite how far back we went there was a limit for what I was willing to do for Jeremiah – his business was shadier than mine and I wasn't about to lose my head for it. I had too many people relying on me.

"In five days we're going to be meeting. We're going to have a gathering underneath Shibuya Park."

"The whole gang?"

"The ones who are left. I've got Tamaki's word that he'll be there, and I've got a few other guys who'll swear to me."

"But why me? And why Shibuya Park?"

"Because Shibuya Park is the one place I can show my face to everyone without risking having it blown off." In other words, it's because he'd feel safe there – because he wouldn't suspect anything would go wrong if he planned his meeting in a setting run by people he could trust. Essentially this meant that he was trying to draw the traitors out into the open. He was expecting a gunfight.

"So you want me to help you kill off your traitors?"

"Again, I know you're not a bodyguard –"

"But this is a job for a bodyguard. I can't do it. It's not my area."

"I know it's not. And I'll make it clear – I can't trust anyone else…" He sighs. "I'm not treating this like any old job. I'm going to pay you upfront."

"How much?"

"Seven hundred thousand. Everything I've got. Maybe more if the gang hasn't squandered the rest already."

My heart almost stops for a moment.

_Seven hundred thousand? _

With that kind of money –

With that kind of money –

How ironic, how I'd denied Suzaku this possibility, only for it to show itself to me mere minutes later –

With seven hundred thousand it would all be over. I'd never have to steal ever again.

I could put Nunnally through school, I could buy us an actual house – hell, we could even forge our papers and go back to Britannia, like nothing had ever happened.

Eleven years of hardship, finally put to rest. Enough money to successfully overcome the system. Enough money to finally possess real power.

If he was serious –

Then it's over.

He's completely backed into a corner. He has nowhere to turn. He's not showing it right now, but he's at the end of his rope.

He wasn't just expecting a gunfight. He was expecting a setup. He was expecting cops, he probably left room for the Emperor himself to show up in his estimations – he was expecting the worst case scenario.

So he wants me there as a meat shield. But he wants to give me meat shield money.

He smiles. "See? I know where the line is. I'm not going to have you jump into the jaws of death for nothing. If I can survive this one night, I can keep things going. I can keep the cops out of our way of life for a while longer."

I can't reply at first.

The money is far too attractive to pass up.

But –

…

…

It was no Catch Twenty Two, but it was still a tough decision to make. I could either keep things going the way they were –

But Suzaku, in all his stupidity, had a point. If even Jeremiah of all people was at the end of his rope, there was no telling how long I was going to be able to keep thieving like this. The cops were slowly getting smarter and unless I found a new way to stay afloat I'd eventually get thrown in the slammer.

The money would be my one way out. And if I took it, the possibilities were almost endless.

…

An image of Nunnally suddenly pops up in my mind.

Which is best for her?

It's a no brainer –

But if I die –

Then what?

…

Then I'll just have to not die.

But even then there was no guarantee…

It looks like I'm going to have to leave everything with Kallen. I'd have to break that to her before I went through with all of this, and that wouldn't be easy, but…

I finally reply.

"I'll do it. But if I die and you somehow get out, you're going to leave the cash with Kallen."

"Sounds good to me. So we have a deal?"

He extends his hand and I shake it.

Perhaps Zero was right. Perhaps the fun and games were ending.

But the way I saw it, another game, a much harder game, was about to start.


	3. The True Man's World

_**Author's Note**_

So here's this new chapter, totally on time and everything. This one is a whopping 16k in length and the last massive chapter I'm doing for a good long while, and also the end of the prologue. The next chapter will start Part 1 of 2, and from there the format is going to change just a little bit. **Note that before Part 1 starts, the rating of the story will be changed to T. This may be temporary or permanent, I have yet to decide. **Don't expect the content to be less dark, though – perhaps less gratuitous, maybe.

And as for these delays, the issue that caused the last three has been resolved, so don't expect any more massive ones like this without warning.

And on one final note, I'd like to thank everyone that's reviewed so far, and certainly hope more of the silent readers will eventually be prompted to as well – reviews are probably the most helpful thing to a writer for any given story, especially fanfics like this that are always essentially a work in progress. If there's anything significant you wish to point out or have any comments/questions that elicit a reply, I'll definitely respond within a reasonable amount of time.

Also, if any of you have made it over to this story from _Reverse Rebirth _in the Persona section and wonder why that story doesn't seem to be moving, there will be an announcement regarding that story's future in a few days. (that sounds really grim, doesn't it?)

So with that, enjoy the chapter.

* * *

_**Chapter 4 : The True Man's World**_

Lelouch Lamperouge, The Dishwasher Prince  
Blasted Tokyo, Shinjuku Prefecture Above Ground  
1965, October 27th, 1:50 A.M.

_I'd been working at the factory nonstop for the last week, but I didn't care. I'd worked untold numbers of hours with little sleep, but I didn't care. But I didn't care. I'd been taken advantage of because of my desperation but I ultimately didn't care. I had my money in hand and that was all that mattered. And now I could buy Nunnally her medicine from the drugstore. In the end that was all that was supposed to matter. That's what Jeremiah told me – _

_Working hard, giving everything you have – _

_In war you only fight to stay alive. To keep yourself from biting the dust and fading into memory. But in society you fight to validate something. To give the life that braved the harsh winter purpose in the spring that follows. _

_Risk elicits reward. And reward is only for those that do everything in their power. _

_That's how the world works –_

_So then –_

_So then why is this –_

_Why is this the fate that's been dealt to me?_

_Why does winter simply go on and on?_

_Three men, twice my size. Three men with knives and switchblades. Three men out for my blood. Three men that adhered to violence for violence's own sake. And me, running for my life, down streets I knew little of._

_I can't call out for help. Or rather I won't. Because I know there is no one who can save me from this fate I've brought down on myself. Because I know that even if there was anyone who could by design they wouldn't. _

_For no reason at all, for no reason I could ever understand, they'd gone after me. Why they intended to kidnap me, or whatever it was they had in mind. Because they knew I had money? Because they thought I was some rich person's son? Because they had power over me and wanted to assert themselves? Why? Why is it that no matter where I go, it's the same?_

_It's not like it was out there. It's not like it was up in the mountains. There's no war, there's no reason to fight or kill or oppose one another. There's no bombs or missiles or killer animals – this is just a sidewalk, like any other sidewalk anywhere else in the world._

_So why? Why here, so far removed from that hostile time, does it feel like the fighting never ended? _

_I can't understand why – why the world is so vile. Why there's naught a small glimmer of kindness in these people and why all they have is carnal desire. Why they're fighting a war against people who they've never met or even seen before. _

_Was living through that fearful time, surviving on that desolate mountain, killing other people for no reason not enough? Wasn't it enough that I'd given everything I had just so I could wake up the next morning? _

_Why is this happening now? Why does it just keep on going?_

_It's not fair. It's not right. _

_But I can't do anything about it._

_I soon find myself cornered in an alleyway. If I were stronger I might be able to fend these people off, but there's simply no chance of that ever happening. _

_All I can do is struggle. Struggle like an animal being put down. _

_And so I sustain all kinds of cuts and bruises as I'm slowly torn down into tiny, inelegant bits. _

_When it comes down to it, all humans are made up of the same thing. Blood and guts. And when people die that's all they are – blood and guts. _

_But I don't want to be blood and guts. _

_I want –_

_I want – _

_Please, I've already given up having a life like any of those boys I see living life to the fullest. I've given up trying to get to know people or socialize with them like a normal person. I've even given up one of my eyes. That should be enough._

_Don't make me give anything else. _

_I've already done everything I can. _

_I just want to take back what's mine, what's owed to me – _

_And before I realize it, he's there, standing right in front of me._

_Jeremiah had come to save me. _

_He broke his rule. He said he wouldn't interfere with me…_

_But of course I knew – _

_It's nothing so elegant. It's nothing so miraculous as that._

_He's here because letting me die would inconvenience him greatly. _

_But when he's beaten and torn to inelegant bits, just like me –_

_When the head of the Scarecrows is just lying there like a ragdoll –_

_Until that moment I never really understood the meaning of his words – the words he'd spoken to me so many times._

_In the end, we both survive. The men decide that robbing Jeremiah of his earnings was more than enough for them. _

_And in the end there was no one to help either of us. _

_This outcome was guaranteed._

_But then why –_

_Why, standing here, over his crumpled form, is this all so wrong?_

_As I find myself in tears, Jeremiah looks up at me._

_He is at peace. The uncertainty gripping my emotions is nowhere to be found in his gaze._

"_Why…?"_

"_I don't know…" That's all he ever replies with. "Maybe for a moment I thought you were my son…" He says with a chuckle. _

_No, he understands. _

_But then –_

"_It's like I've always said." He speaks. "You have to give and give until you have nothing left. It doesn't matter how many times. You keep on going and going until you die. That's the kind of power people like us have. The only power people like us have."_

"_But why… Is it always like this?"_

"_Because it never stops. Because the struggle for wealth, nourishment, even purpose – the great struggle for power is all us humans have. The war isn't over – it's never going to end."_

"_But that makes no sense. There's no reason things have to be this way…!"_

_He laughs weakly. "That's just it. That's why no one knows the answer to life. There is no answer. There's no reason. Things just are."_

"_I can't – I can't understand something like that!" _

_Shakily he reaches up and places a hand on my shoulder. "You've gotten your first glimpse into a true man's world. One day you'll understand. And maybe then you'll know how to save yourself."_

Another memory – another chunk of my past returns to me within the confines of my dreams.

Giving and giving, and giving even more –

There was no better lesson that Jeremiah Gottwald taught me, in all the years that followed that day. Through all the years of training and the blood and sweat they produced, nothing ever really stuck with me more prominently than the realization I'd come to on that day.

Indeed, I owe Jeremiah a great deal. But at the same time it was difficult for me to say 'yes' - to sign myself a death warrant and walk into almost certain doom for his sake.

Why? Why am I so selfish?

Because that's exactly what I'm supposed to be.

Be selfish. Crave that which you want more than anything else. And let neither the judicial law nor the natural law deny you. Claim what you desire with power.

All men are equal in the sense that all men are fueled by this same desire. Every human on the planet, even. What differentiates between good and evil is whether or not a man desires validation for himself or gratification. And there are varying degrees of good and evil both – a man who murders another man is not necessarily evil. In fact, a man who murders another man may be the epitome of pure goodness. But a man who murders a man for murder's own sake is anything but.

Every man, woman, and child hunger – they hunger for something, and no matter what that something is, they will struggle to preserve or obtain it. Humans hunger just like animals – but humans are by no means insignificant.

A man who validates his existence – there is some meaning in that, no matter what.

But a man who gratifies his existence is simply waste. And nothing more.

As for me –

If there's anything I can validate my existence with, it's Nunnally.

Nunnally was always a very sick child. Even back in Britannia she never played with any children her age because she very rarely could go outside. She was always silent about it, but even as she smiled I could always tell she wanted something more. And when the time came and we were forced to flee the country, her despair was never more apparent.

Nunnally was removed from the world she wanted to live in by force. By nothing that she had the power to stop. More than anything else I wanted to let her see that world with her own eyes. I wanted to give her the chance to live the way she wanted to.

And now – so many years later, after endless hardship and strife, I can look at her now and see how much success I've attained. It still isn't easy and it still isn't perfect, but Nunnally is not only free of her illness, but she's been able to live outside of my shadow –

Her smile isn't weak anymore – it's strong and vibrant and has the power to crack open something even as impenetrable as Alice's shell. She doesn't wish for things that are out of her reach anymore – she's found her way towards almost everything she's ever wanted. And she has even dedicated a portion of herself to giving freely –

Today was one such day where Nunnally would give. We had gone underground into the Shinjuku Tunnels, where the Japanese people slaved away towards an insurmountable goal.

After the occupation of Japan began Emperor Charles himself ordered the mining of Tokyo's underground to commence, and for all those that could not maintain their previous lifestyles to receive 'lifelong benefits' by being the project's sole labor force. Granted those benefits amounted to scraps of bread and dirtied water on top of just enough money to perhaps buy someone's used shirt. It was never established what it was that they would be mining for – only that they had yet to find it, but upon finding it all the workers would be granted full Britannian citizenship, as would their families. Needless to say the workers worked, and kept working. It's been eleven years since the mining started, and still the Japanese dig – digging for their freedom. Trying their damnedest to uncover their future – essentially digging for nothing. The tunnels are now home to the Burrower's Way, a system of small, incoherent villages that comprised the new Japanese culture – the culture of death that so many have been born into and that so many more die in every day.

Down here the Scarecrows thrive. Some of them are benevolent towards their ailing Japanese friends, while some extort the suffering for profit. There was no way to really control this, especially considering how Jeremiah had enough trouble holding his gang together to begin with.

The Japanese people of all ages and genders live in suffering, just as Nunnally had once. And so at least once a week Nunnally 'gives' – she and Alice spend afternoons visiting those their age who are not as fortunate and spread food and water out to them. The money for it all comes out of my pockets and occasionally from Kallen's refrigerator when she's not looking, and so once in awhile I join them while ensuring that both girls would return from the bowels of Tokyo unharmed. Granted Alice didn't necessarily need any help in doing so but she appreciated my company regardless.

Our usual rounds through the tunnels involve us mostly sticking to the outer sections – the further in you go the more lawless things seem to get, in the sense that you have a much larger chance of getting attacked by sleep deprived workers and either beaten to death or robbed of everything you had and not be lent a hand even if you weren't Japanese yourself – the Britannians running the mines could only really control things at the dig sites themselves. Beyond that they had no interesting getting involved – they'd essentially be risking their lives for nothing.

Nunnally's main route passes through the areas where most of the younger children concentrate. Her desire is innocent and kind, but is backed by a seemingly all-knowing intellect that Nunnally only ever really shows off when she feels the most people can benefit from it. Her plan more or less aims to get supplies straight to the children and to ensure that the children make use of them. The idea of simply giving food and water to those in need would in most cases being considered enough on its own – but the only people who believe in that are ignorant of the truth.

Nunnally is well aware that the children may be robbed of her gifts to them by their parents, who would in turn take them deeper into the tunnels and sell them for drugs. Japanese children, as dependent on their parents as they are, could never really hide anything from them. They simply don't have the age or the development to outright lie to their elders effectively – and on top of this, they are conditioned into deferring to nothing but their parents' authority. The drugs circulate, and so more and more would be made, more and more would be sold, more and more buyers would generate, and in turn more and more money the tunnel workers survive on would vanish into the pockets of some rich drug lord.

Nunnally mitigates the damage caused by this effect in her own way – she gives the children their own choice. Either accept their food and drink and make use of it right in front of her or receive nothing at all. And any child would defer to her authority in that case – if they can't get the supplies to their parents in the first place, there's no reason why they should be beaten over it. Therefore, Nunnally gives them an option that allows them to act rationally without going against their parents' wishes – there's no way to guarantee that the children would be left unharmed, but it was a scenario where everyone who should win ends up winning in one way or another.

Nunnally's process does more than give children food and water – it gives them independence they so desperately need – independence from both the shadows of their parents that they're essentially forced to live under or work the tunnels and from the Britannians who would step on them without a second thought if their lives were at risk.

The process takes a very long time. The process is very personal. People who 'donate' to the ailing Japanese children to gain the approval of the Britannian middle class dissenters would never even get within six feet of any one of these children – but Nunnally will gather groups of them in a circle and they would eat lunch. She does this at least twice a week – and so the children in the tunnels have a ray of hope that they adore to no end.

Today was no different. When Nunnally had more than just Alice with her, she would usually skip out on the usual spot near the entrance to the tunnels and head further in to another gathering place for children that was normally too dangerous for her to get to – we frequented one particular school area, built out of a prison that had sunk beneath the surface over time as a result of the tunneling.

The children around this area are much older than the ones Nunnally would normally see. The elder ones could generally keep better track of themselves and were harder to take advantage of – with the majority of them being adolescents it's somewhat surprising that there's a sort of quiet unity that keeps them all tightly knit. Most of them are younger than Nunnally, but there was the occasional one or two that was around her age. Being the perfectly normal girl she was she used to try making passes at the ones she liked when she thought I wasn't looking. Used to in the sense that she found out I'd noticed each and every time and, for the sake of the boys she'd looked at, never did so again.

Nunnally and Alice go around and distribute bottled water and fresh loaves of garlic bread they'd purchased from one of the Italian shops earlier this morning. Despite their ages most of the boys in the small crowd are somewhat taken aback by Nunnally. Those that clearly had never met her before clearly don't trust her – perhaps she was feeding them poison or had hidden small bombs in the food. Surely, she had _something _to gain from doing this. To these children 'trust' is something that doesn't exist – but once they reach out and accept Nunnally's freely given love, their eyes adjust, and they see value – value in kindness, value in good will, value in another human being. Without Nunnally, it is all too apparent that such value would be lost entirely to these children, and to a larger extent to the Japanese people.

As there's very little chance of them getting jumped in the middle of a sizable crowd of their admirers I stand a bit further back from Nunnally and Alice – there's a nice collapsed wall a good ways away that I lean against. I'm not particularly good at dealing with kids, so keeping my distance like this is for the best. Granted the older ones were less trouble than the younger ones I usually encounter – in the sense that they won't run at the sight of me – but I'm not touchy feely, so interacting with emotionally fragile individuals was something I tried to avoid as much as possible. While I wouldn't expect anything less from Nunnally, I was more surprised than anything else at how Alice of all people seemed to like children – at least the ones younger than her.

With the elder ones it's very possible for one of the more obnoxious boys in the pack to step out of line and have his whole leg forced back. Or his arm. Or his spine, as in one tragic instance of someone apparently trying to grope Nunnally's chest. Then again I think I helped out a bit on that one so I'm not sure if that would count.

I end up taking in my surroundings for the duration of the meal. The tunnels themselves are more urbanized than one would think – the dirt roads are lined with street lights, the buildings are largely two stories tall with some being much more run down than others, everything was built out of stock materials and aside from the occasional tent or two there weren't any structures similar to mud huts or anything of the sort – in essence the Tokyo Underground was at first glance a city that was eternally night, with the sun leaking in through gaps in the ground where digging had caused cave ins such as the fairly large opening right above me – the sun itself was almost visible. For the children living down here in the darkness, the sun is without a doubt the most beloved symbol of hope – hope that would forever be out of their reach.

Perhaps that was the point of it – the point of turning this prison into a schoolhouse for the older children. The point of leaving the gaps in the ceiling in the first place. To teach the Japanese people what hope was on an individual level, and by doing so ingrain the strongest kind of despair into their minds forever.

Bismarck, the Knight of One – the man who organized the new law for Japan. The man who calculated this perfectly controllable society of his. The man who ensured that with the death of my generation Japan would be deprived of even the slightest flicker of life forever.

Of all the men in the world, of all the Britannian noblemen, of the ten Knights of the Round – why him?

Because he was heartless. And heartless people provide results – maximized efficiency, maximized profit, maximized despair.

This was the sort of world so many people were born into. But perhaps if people like Nunnally exist, then perhaps there is a glimmer of hope – a dream is nothing more than a dream, but perhaps it is better to dream of the impossible than to never dream at all.

I find myself staring up at the morning sky, the sun inching closer and closer. I close my eyes – I can feel a draft of air from up above – it almost captures the sensation of the wind in your face. Perhaps for those living here, as deep into the tunnels this place is, there may be something akin to peace of mind after all.

A place where one could escape from the harsh reality of their family falling to pieces, their own livelihood at risk almost every moment of every day, the fact that there is simply no escape from it all but death –

Perhaps for a child this place isn't a caved-in prison. Perhaps for a child this is a sort of sanctuary.

I begin to lose myself in the feeling… I can hear the wind whispering into my ear…

…

"_Nyoho_."

It takes me a few seconds to realize it but –

The wind doesn't make cat sounds.

I feel something wet pressed against my earlobe –

This time I can't really suppress it. I let out a shout and lose my balance against the wall behind me and topple over – or rather I would have had the person who'd snuck up on me not grabbed a hold of me.

Sure enough, as bewildering as it was, Shirley Fenette was suddenly at my side with a large sack slung over her shoulder and a face I'd love to punch right now. She does her best to contain her laughter but as usual she fails miserably.

"Oh come on, there's no way you were really _that _scared." She laughs while I fix my hat, which had nearly fallen off, and grumble some curse under my breath. "Lulu? You're not mad, are you?" She looks at me with puppy dog eyes – sorry, but only Nunnally can get to me with a move like that.

"You need to start minding your own business from now on – actually, you know what, let me be blunt about it – leave me alone."

Shirley rolls her eyes, her smile still very apparent. "Oh, so you're just grumpy today. I thought you'd have lightened up by now but then I remembered that you never lighten up –"

"So what do you want from me on this fine day?" I sigh, not even looking remotely in her direction. "You might as well get to the point. I'm not going to listen to your usual banter today."

She frowns for a moment, moving around me to get a better look at my face. After a few moments of avoiding making eye contact with her she backs away and sits the "I was going to leave these off with the guy who runs this school. And you happened to be here so I thought I'd say hi."

"Then say hi – don't do… whatever the hell you just did." I then take the opportunity to peer into Shirley's bag –

In the bag is what appears to be a massive quantity of books – and fairly old, expensive ones at that.

"Where did you manage to find all these?"

She scratches the back of her head and smiles somewhat embarrassedly. "My dad's got a pretty cushy job, and he gave me a pretty big allowance this month, so… I decided I'd spend it on getting these."

"You went out of your way to buy all of these for charity?" That money would've been better spent on food supplies than on books.

"Huh? No, I bought them for me. I read all these already, so I figured I'd donate 'em instead of having them collect dust."

…Huh?

I look into the bag again –

There were at least three dozen books in this bag – she blew through all of these in a month?! That can't be right – _I _can't even read that fast. This was some sort of gag, it had to be…!

"This seems like a pretty big load for a high school student." I try to hide my shock as best as I could.

"Eh, it's not that big a deal. I would've got more if I didn't need to take a cab everywhere, but I guess that's a disadvantage of living in Shinjuku."

"Did you just speed through these or do you actually know all the material?"

"Sure I know all the material." She was looking at me as though I'd asked a fairly obvious question. She reaches into the bag and starts picking books at random. "Like this one – this is a non-fiction book on the Japanese Occupation Movement. One of the last books by any Japanese writer – sold fairly well, kept the guy out of places like this – ooh, and this one was a novelization of a play about three kids on an island – and this one is an adaptation of an old Italian myth about the witch of a forest where the protagonist has _crazy _red hair –"

"I get the idea." I sigh. Although I'm not really all that exasperated – I was genuinely impressed with her, although at the moment I was still trying to reason out how she'd managed to read through all of this content in a month. Peering into the bag, my eyes suddenly catch a fairly old looking book – it had no title printed on it, or author, or publication number or anything – it had nothing more than a black, leather cover binding the pages together. "What might this one be?"

The moment I pull the book out of the bag Shirley's expression hardens. She snatches the book from me in all of an instant and stows it away in what I assumed to be a back pocket of some sort on her skirt. "Geez, how the hell did _this _get in there?"

"Did you drop one of your favorites in there by accident?"

"Yeah, something like that…" The atmosphere has completely shifted – whatever that book had been, its contents probably had more significance for Shirley than the rest of them. Perhaps a diary? Although I'd never expect someone like her to have personally selected such a grimly bound book as a diary. Nunnally was modest about this sort of thing and even she had a brightly colored one.

I decide dwelling on it is not the correct path to take. "In any case, I didn't know you were such an avid reader… Well, I didn't really know that you did anything productive other than swimming."

She narrows her eyes ever so slightly. "Geez, you really _don't _have a strong opinion of me, do you?"

"Would you have a strong opinion of me if I bugged you endlessly without your permission?"

"Aren't I at least attractive? Or do you only have eyes for your little sister?"

She was starting to push it – but perhaps I could entertain her momentarily. It wasn't as though I had anything better to do at this point.

"If you want me to comment on your looks you have to at least pretend you want to want me to find you attractive."

"What makes you think I don't? Maybe the only reason why I bug you is because you won't admit the truth."

"If that were the case you wouldn't be so persistent about it."

She groans. "You can't let me have _any_ fun, can you?"

"Your idea of fun is sick and twisted."

"_Whatever_. You're too serious for me to go out with anyway."

"As I suspected."

She lifts her bag again with a huff. "Yeah, yeah, say whatever you want. I'm gonna say hi to you sister and drop these off. Don't expect me to come back." She says with a grumble. She starts to walk off towards the crowd of students before suddenly stopping, turning on a dime, smiling as broadly and as sweetly as she could manage and waves. "Bye, Lulu!" With that she takes off.

I sigh and sit down on the cold concrete beneath me, leaning against the wall.

There's only so much I can take from that girl. But every time we meet it seems as though she keeps setting the bar for that.

It's surprising, though – for just a short span of time, my thoughts of this coming Friday had slipped away. I'd somehow managed to lose myself in the backdrop – and Shirley had certainly helped to some extent as well.

It's the same for dreams – they never last forever, and they leave behind nothing but a bitter feeling when you wake up and remember what reality is like. Of course you can keep on dreaming, but there becomes a point where dreaming serves no real purpose other than to gratify our unsatisfied desires.

_Of course_ part of me wants to keep going the way I've been going. _Of course _part of me wants to just stop thieving altogether and live out my days lavishly.

_Of course _I don't want to die. But –

But for Nunnally's sake I was willing to.

Before I know it, I find myself starting to doubt that –

Maybe Shirley wasn't just spouting nonsense.

Maybe I had to lighten up. Take things slowly. Stop moving from moment to moment with a moment several moments away in mind. But –

But I had to keep on giving. I had to give everything I could –

Since Shirley's departure my face has been hidden under my hat – it takes me several moments to notice that someone is standing in front of me. It's Nunnally, smiling as vibrantly at me as she does at everyone else. Granted she was less restrictive around me – even though she always tried to hide her distress or concern she was never really able to slip it past me. At this very moment she was more exhausted than anything else.

"Is everything alright?" I ask.

"Everything's fine. You should really come over by everyone – you haven't had anything to eat all day."

"It's of no concern. If you have extra leave it with one of the kids."

She sighs, sitting down next to me. "You need to take better care of yourself, you know."

"Don't worry, I'm not going to croak because of my lifestyle."

"But even so it's still something you need to work out. I don't like seeing bags under your eyes every time you come home, you know."

"It's not _my _fault I'm always exhausted."

"Oh? Then is it _my _fault?"

"You _are_ the one who pulled me down here, after all. Not that I really mind."

"You liar. You're fed up with me, aren't you?"

"Nonsense. I want nothing more than to watch my dear sister eat food with a pack of strangers."

"That's a mean thing to say." She pouts.

"Your brother is a _very _mean individual, Nunnally. I'm not sure why you have yet to figure this out."

"Alice doesn't agree." She laughs. The girl in question suddenly looks in our direction – I doubt she'd heard Nunnally say her name, but in any event Nunnally waves to her. Alice, to avoid embarrassment, focuses back on her garlic bread. "In fact as far as she's concerned you're probably the most respectable person on the planet."

"Perhaps she'd fight a war for me."

"She'd make you the new emperor if you asked her." She sighs. "I really think she's being too reckless. I mean we don't get bothered very often, but when we do she doesn't hold back at all. Suzaku-kun is one thing, but what if she seriously hurts someone important?"

"She'll be fine. She's doing her best to clean herself up."

"But what if she ends up unhappy?"

"I guess you never really stop to get a good look at her, but she's never happier than she is when you're dragging her around."

"You really think so?"

"Alice would probably conquer a country for you all on her own if you told her to."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

Alice was an essential component to Nunnally's life. Those two worried over each other more than was necessary, but if Alice and Nunnally get Alice and Nunnally through the day without issue then I suppose it's worth it.

But –

Even so –

"…But really, though… Is everything alright?"

"Hm?" She looks at me, her eyes sparkling curiously.

I decide that I can't really keep this to myself anymore. "Are you… content? With everything the way it is?"

She more or less got the message. 'Do you want a better life?'

"Everything's fine, really." She says after a few silent moments. "I don't think I could be any happier… Helping people like this, with you and Alice supporting me. And Kallen too, I guess." She giggles lightly. She looks away from me. "The way things are right now… I couldn't be happier. So don't think I'm sad, because I'm not. I've got everything I'm ever going to need – that's more than enough. That's more than all these other people have. I'm really lucky – I've got so many people that care about me."

Her response – 'Yes.'

The silence sets in. She can justify it however she wants to – as long as she can convince herself that she's right, I'll accept it. But only outwardly.

Suddenly her expression lights up as she apparently remembers something. "Oh, that's right – Kallen was drunk last night. Like _really _drunk, worse than she was that one time you had that fever and she thought you weren't going to survive the night."

"Oh?" This was of some importance – Kallen only ever drinks when she's stressed to the point of wanting to jump off a bridge. Yes, such a trait is odd for someone who runs a bar, but that doesn't make it any less apparent.

"I'm not really sure what it was all about, but maybe you should go talk to her later… You know, she really _is _worried about you. She just… doesn't think through how she expresses it sometimes."

"No worries, I'm well aware."

She stands. "I'll get Alice to help me cook you something for later."

"Well, if you're going to be insistent about it, just don't make anything with eggs this time, alright?"

She laughs again, the sullenness in her expression fading away rapidly. "You don't need to worry about that again – I taught her how to make an omelet just the other day."

"Even so."

"So something with rice then?"

"Rice sounds nice." Honestly I just wanted to taste something edible. I was the furthest thing from a picky eater – it comes with the profession, really, since in theory I could go a full twenty-four hours without any substantial nourishment, especially if I get stuck out in the wasteland.

With that she returns to Alice's side, surrounded by people who adore her.

Ah yes, for Nunnally I couldn't be any happier.

But –

She says she doesn't mind. She says it doesn't bother her. She says she's fine the way things are. But I know that she's lying.

The only imperfection, the only imperfection in her perfectly normal life is that she still fears for her brother's life. She still fears the potential for everything to fall apart at a moment's notice. Even if it's hidden away in the recesses of her mind, I can still see it clear as day.

And as long as things aren't perfect, I have to keep on giving.

And with this last mission I won't have to give her any more – with this I'll have the money to help her reach perfection.

So perhaps now you can see why I'm so quick to throw my life away. It's because I'm just that selfish.

The rest of the week is remarkably uneventful. I wasn't exactly going to be going anywhere until I went off on Jeremiah's job – quite frankly there was no point.

* * *

Later that night I decide it's about time to see what Kallen's been up to. Putting all my attention into Nunnally is something she's used to, but for as long as I can remember she's been an extremely jealous type. As such, she needs at least a little of my attention, even if she insists that she doesn't and that she's not a little girl anymore – granted were she actually dating anyone this wouldn't be an issue I'd have to resolve, but no, despite having plenty of drunk men to choose from she hasn't been in a relationship for – well, for a _very _long time. Let's put it that way.

But more importantly I wanted to know what had got her drinking last night. Of all the things that trouble her I could think of exactly two that would put her over the edge like this.

It turns out that she's already retired to her room and even closed the bar early – she skipped out on at least three of our peak hours, which was certainly not something she did regularly – or at all for that matter.

I decide to walk into her room unceremoniously. The moment I'm inside I get the picture –

Kallen is in bed, an emptied bottle of scotch set on her nightstand and her head buried under her pillow.

"You should've knocked." She mumbles, her voice barely audible.

"You wouldn't have let me in."

"I might not've been wearing anything."

"Hah, you act as though I haven't already seen everything there is to –" Suddenly I'm whacked in the face with Kallen's pillow. She'd thrown it quite a distance.

"Ass." She grunts before slamming her head back against the mattress beneath her. "The hell do you want, anyway?"

"Nunnally told me you weren't feeling well."

"_Of course_ she did." Kallen groans. "It's never 'I noticed you were losing your mind so I came to check on you' or even 'are you okay because you don't look alright'." Indeed, she was drunk once again. This was her trademark 'why don't you ever pay attention to me' temper tantrum that she's been perfecting ever since we were little. "You know, sometimes I wonder if you realize that more than two people live in this building."

"If you made more than one weekly trip into the tunnels then maybe I'd dot over you a little more. But seeing as how you've been spending your free time lately on the bottle –"

"Shut up. You made your point, so just shut up."

I do as she asks – getting her worked up was the last thing I wanted to do right now. I decide the best course of action would be to survey her room in search of some indication of what had set her off like this –

It takes me very little time. On the small coffee table near the sofa on the right-hand side of the room was a small note. I quietly move towards it and pick it up, looking over the contents –

_Dearest Sister,_

_The time has almost arrived. While Japan cries itself to sleep we have worked long and hard to ensure that one day it may smile once more. Our forces are prepared, or hearts are sturdy and our rage is polished to a sheen – we've lost many of our companions in the process, but now their sacrifices will no longer be in vain. _

_Everything has been building up until this moment. In mere days the world will be lit by the fires of our holy war – at last the time has come to take back what was stolen from us. In mere days we will tear away our shackles and reclaim the freedom we are owed. No matter how outrageous, our unity will make any wall surmountable. Any mountain climbable. We will march upon the District Headquarters in Ueno, and then in Shibuya, and then in Ginza, and then in Shinjuku –_

_The unjust law that must be cut down – we will set fire to its very foundations in one fearsome battle. _

_When I return home victorious, everything will go back to the way it was. Mother and Father can remarry, the wealth that was robbed from us by the accursed Britannian system will be returned with interest – our family will be whole again. Perhaps even stronger than ever before. _

_We will have our freedom. And when we have our freedom Japan will breathe once more. _

_Please wait for me. Wait for our revolution to rekindle our society, and never lose hope – _

_Your dearest brother, Naoto_

So it would seem Yamato was at last ready to begin its march on the districts – in essence the foundation of law enforcement in each prefecture was managed at the District Headquarters – detectives, officers, and in most cases small military units that are deployed in dire situations operate out of a single building on the heaviest guarded street in its prefecture. Past revolts on even Ueno's HQ proved to be nothing but noise for the Britannians running the show –

But Yamato was confident enough – whoever it was that was calling the shots down there apparently thought it was time to send the invaluable child suicide squads in to throw things off balance. Naoto apparently had no plans to die any time soon, but then again he _is _and ignoramus even by Suzaku's standards.

"Naoto sounds like he's doing well."

Kallen bolts upward, now sitting up in bed with her bloodshot eyes half open. "Don't read that!"

"He sounds like he's doing this mostly for his family – I suppose 'freedom' is a big part of it too, but he seems very determined to get his old life back… Now if only his elder sister would tell him that his mother passed away over a year ago –"

"You know I can't do that."

"It might bring him back. It might get him off the most dangerous bandwagon in the world."

"It might make him _kill _himself."

"Well the way things are right now he's going to die either way."

"You don't know that."

"But you don't know either. Yet this still continues."

"You know, maybe if… Maybe if Nunnally were a bit more reckless you'd know what you're talking about. But she's not, so you don't. So shut up." She's definitely not as mad as she'd usually be, but she at least got her point across.

"At this stage of the game if he isn't grown up enough yet to take this sort of thing in stride –"

"Could you _not _go on about what being 'grown up' means? People _can't_ take everything in stride – fuck, _I _can't take everything in stride and I put up with lunatics visiting my bar every day, a constant stream of shit from my dad, and whatever medical crap that needs to be covered for whenever you step out of your damn room –"

"These days Naoto is obsessed with truth and justice. If you were to tell him the truth, then maybe you can disillusion some of that. And maybe save his life in the process."

"How many times have we had this talk?"

"Evidently not enough for you to figure out that you needed to pull him out of this a long time ago."

She sighs. "Gah…Maybe that's it. Maybe if I were just a little more _decisive_, not even more logical or critical or whatever the hell you want to call it – _god dammit_, my head hurts…" She sighs again. "…But even so, is stopping him the right thing to do?"

"Rebellion of this sort will change virtually nothing."

"But you don't know that. And I don't either, but… But you know as well as I do this shit can't keep going the way it's been going. Almost all my customers are obnoxious ex-military guys who want to take me home with them –"

"Radical change will always leave behind instability –"

"But what if radical change is what we need? Maybe we _need _freedom rallies and public executions and whatever the fuck else –"

"But then what happens to everyone caught in the storm?"

"I don't know… But you don't know either."

She definitely had a point – radical action could only lead to complete pandemonium, but even so we had no real way of knowing if whatever ultimately awaited us on the other side would be worth the struggle or not.

"God I hate this…" She groans. "If that idiot hadn't gone out there to begin with…"

Ultimately Kallen had a great deal of pressure to deal with all on her own – her brother was risking his life for essentially nothing on a daily basis. As she had no fiancée or husband or even a boyfriend her father is constantly pressuring to tie herself down to someone as the Stadfield wealth was very quickly drying up, and on top of that she had to take care of Nunnally and to a large extent my tendencies only made things harder on her.

If I go through with Jeremiah's plan, things will change for her too. Everything would change for the better.

"…I know you want better than this. Hell, I certainly know you _deserve _better than this… But for now, you need to work with it."

She lies there in silence for a few moments. "For how long, do you think?"

"That I can't say." I can't bring myself to tell her that I'm likely not going to be returning the next time I leave – having my demise dropped on her suddenly later on would actually be more beneficial to her in this situation. "…But I suppose for now you should focus on getting rest. Let Naoto become my problem for awhile."

"What're you going to do?"

"We might not be on the best of terms, but for your sake I'll try to pull him away from the battlefield… I'll go to Yamato in person. It was never an option I was willing to choose, but I suppose if all this has done _this much _to you I have no choice in the matter."

"Yeah, right, like you'd ever –"

"At this point I owe you a great deal. And I know that going into the future I'm going to owe you that much more. I can do at least this much." Granted there was no way I'd ever make it to Yamato – but if I could alleviate any of Kallen's pain, I would.

It's almost sad – part of my intention for coming here was to place all of my affairs in her hands. But the way this turned out things had gone the other way around.

So now, when I died tomorrow, Kallen would have nothing to remember me by but this moment. And the plethora of troubles that would likely drive her over the edge.

She doesn't really reply to that. I wonder for a moment if she'd even really registered what I'd said at the end there – she _was _drunk right now, after all, so it was always possible that she'd processed all of that incorrectly anyway.

I turn to leave. "I'll be going now –"

"…Lelouch?"

"Yes?"

"…When was the last time we had sex?"

Well that was an odd question. "…A little over three years ago, I'd guess."

She doesn't reply at first, but eventually she more or less whispers a response. "Okay… Just checking."

* * *

Lelouch Lamperouge, The Dishwasher Prince  
Blasted Tokyo, Shinjuku Prefecture Above Ground  
1965, October 29th, 2:40 PM.

Before I know it, Jeremiah appears at my front door. The day has come – it's time for everything to change.

Nunnally happily greets him – to her he's Uncle Jeremiah, a strange man who saved her and her brother and fed them every day for three years. Jeremiah explains to her with the best of his ability that he needs to drag me off somewhere for a few days.

Nunnally takes it in stride. She has literally no idea. She's still a little disappointed, of course, but she was always that way –

I almost want to stop myself from going through with this –

But –

In the end she sees me off like always. In the end I try to keep myself from letting the notion that this would be the last time I would ever see my sister sink in.

"Onii-sama?" She calls out to me sweetly moments before we're about to leave. "When do you think you'll be back this time?"

I shrug my shoulders, as always. "I'll be back whenever I'll be back."

She pouts. "You always say that."

"Right – so this time won't be any different. I'll be home before you know it."

"Oh, alright." She smiles somewhat sadly. As I'm about to turn away she embraces me.

No, not now. This sort of thing can't happen now of all times.

"I love you, Onii-sama."

"I love you too." Perhaps I reply a little too quickly – but Nunnally backs away mere moments before I was sure that my composure was going to slip.

And I force my legs to carry me outside the bar –

"So you're all set?" Jeremiah asks me one final time.

"Of course I'm not."

"Don't you want to be able to leave home without regrets?"

I smile. "It's impossible for a man like me to spend even one waking moment without regrets."

He shrugs his shoulders. "If that's what you've decided on, I'll take it."

Jeremiah and I finally head towards the car that was parked outside. "…No matter what, no harm will come to her, Lelouch. She'll get the life you want for her. I promise."

I fix my hat. "If you break that promise I'll be back from beyond the grave before you know it."

"I don't doubt that."

And so our drive begins – I don't quite recognize the driver, but I didn't really expect to as there were plenty of folks in the Scarecrows that still supported Jeremiah aside from the ones I was familiar with. I can at least assume that we haven't been sold out just yet.

Time begins to pass – just like it always had. Except now there was so very little time left – for me at least.

"Say, Lelouch…" Jeremiah suddenly speaks not long after the drive has begun. "Did I ever tell you exactly how I started up the Scarecrows? How I started this whole thieving thing?"

"…Come to think of it, I don't think you ever have." I say with a shrug. "I never really figured it was anything important."

He smiles, fixing his fedora. "Well, we've come a long way – I might as well tell you the story… I'm sure you're familiar with the events of that war you fought in, and the war that preceded it, right?"

"Of course. Several occupied European territories, albeit primarily Germany and Belgium, along with Russia orchestrated a series of attacks against Britannian territory. Soviet and Nazi troops raided Aries Palace overnight and Britannia eventually struck back. One war was fought against Germany and the other rebel nations in Europe and the other against Russia ten years later."

"So you get the idea… You see, I was a lieutenant in the Royal Forces when the war with the European Territories started. When the Germans attacked Aries Palace I led the men on the ground straight into the jaws."

"On the ground…?" It's fairly common knowledge that less than ninety five percent of the men who countered the fascist armies on foot in front of Aries Palace survived – the battle itself was bloody enough but the Soviet bombings blew away almost all of the survivors.

"I didn't say I got away unscathed. I've even got the scars to prove it. That aside, there was a chance event that occurred mere moments into the aftermath of that battle that changed my life forever."

"This isn't going to turn into some ill fated love story, is it?"

He laughs for a few moments before falling silent. I'd been joking, but it looks like that was _exactly _where this story of his was going. "Tell me something, Lelouch. How much do you know about Marianne the Flash?"

Now _there _was a name I hadn't heard in a long time. Granted I hadn't actually been alive when she was famous, so it was somewhat miraculous that I'd heard her name at all. "Only what the books say. That she led her medic squad straight into Berlin and conquered the city with no more than five inexperienced foot soldiers."

"That's about right, she was one hell of a woman." He laughs. "On that day, in the ruin of the Aries Palace – she saved my life. Of course at this point she was still just a medic – she was just doing her job and she was fairly new at it too. For twenty-four hours we were stranded in what was still hostile territory – during that time when we survived together, we fell in love."

"But Marianne the Flash married Emperor Charles –"

"Indeed she did… The reason why I am the way I am now was because I followed my heart to the bitter end – and in the end I ended up with nothing. Marianne returned from Germany a hero and a world neither of us had ever even dreamed of opened its doors to her. But even then she never forgot about me – we continued to meet and we were still very much in love."

"_This _sure sounds like it'll end well."

"Little by little, the more and more we came into contact the more and more I realized she was slipping away, into the world run by the rich and fortunate. The power and wealth were going to her head – and before too long she began to forget the meaning of loyalty and respect. And one day Marianne was suddenly the queen, and I had been discarded, a relic of her past that was meaningless in her present and future. A war vet who had no purpose in peace time."

"It sounds like she was the one who did the betraying."

"And when I came to realize that, my anger was all that fueled me. I had a brief glimpse of eternal happiness and being robbed of it stirred up the war veteran in me… I'm sure you can relate to this – when the war ends and you've put down your weapon, you remember every time you've fired it… How many times have you shot to save your own life?"

"More times than I could probably count in any reasonable amount of time."

"And how many times did you shoot for revenge?"

"… I can't say."

"When I picked up my rifle I never shot for revenge. I never had that sort of attachment – I was always pretty much a loner. Distant from everyone else. I wasn't exactly an orphan but I was never on great terms with my family, especially when I said I wanted to join the army. I didn't really give a shit about anything – not until Lady Marianne stole my heart – and when she fell into the grasp of fame and fortune, I shot for revenge, once and only once."

"…And who did you kill?"

"…This is a Britannian royal secret." He adjusts his fedora, his face fading from view. "Emperor Charles has a bullet lodged in his chest, just above his heart. A bullet produced from my own pistol. There was a small riot in Aries Palace not all that long after the first part of the war ended. The rioters were all war vets that received no compensation upon returning home and had lost their jobs. I was one of them, although I wasn't in it for the money."

"And you got the lucky shot?"

Jeremiah laughs. "That's a pretty asshole-ish way to put it, but I guess you're right. By some miracle I wasn't tagged as the one who fired the shot, but I was rounded up with all the others who weren't dead – one dishonorable discharge later and I was stranded on an Orange farm in France. It was hell on earth, and despite how so many died I made it out alive."

It was somewhat common knowledge that prior to the victory in Russia Britannian projects were outsourced to businessmen in allied sections of the European Union – these projects were massive in size and to cut losses and substantiate their profits the businessmen bought out orange farms around the country and used them as a front for unpaid labor shops for illegal or displaced individuals. When victory came on the Russian front Emperor Charles turned on his French associates and vowed to free the exploited workers and inspired insurrection, an incident that inadvertently created the Scarecrows when Jeremiah and an outspoken socialist publicized the truth and gave the newly dominated Japanese a name to rally behind and a name to rally against.

"And is that the end?"

He laughs. "Of course not. My revenge went on. My revenge never died. When I eventually made my way here to Japan I decided – for the sake of revenge, for the sake of the Marianne I'd loved, I would play the game for the game's own sake. If the world would turn its back on me then I would turn my back on the world – it was a very childish notion, but then again back then I was barely even a man. The more time that passed the more the truth of my lost love seemed to stand out."

"And what truth was that?"

"If a man validates himself with only love, then he truly has no meaning. Love itself is not infallible – love is blind, love is misguided – a man must achieve. A man must overcome. A man must struggle – you know the rest. I don't have any strong feelings for the Japanese people – but I can relate. Every time you hear a gunshot ring out, every time a man screams 'long live Japan', a Japanese man is shooting for revenge."

"But people who shoot for revenge tend to die in vain, don't they?"

"And that's why I'm doing this. Why I've organized Japanese crime. So that we can all keep shooting for revenge, one business endeavor at a time."

It made sense – the more the Scarecrows stung the more it would hurt, and the more Britannia would feel it. But the way things were now, surely things hadn't gone as planned.

Or maybe they had. At this point Jeremiah was one of the most wanted men in the world – Britannia had clearly been hurt enough. The Scarecrows had definitely left a gaping wound in the economic structure Britannia had established. And maybe now it had come to the point where he could do nothing else. But would that satiate his desire for revenge?

And on another note –

"But then how did it get this bad? If you're all striving towards the same goal –"

"But that's just it. We're all aiming at the same thing – every one of us wants 'revenge'."

"…But not everyone can exact their vengeance. Not everyone gets their resolution."

"Exactly… You were always the same way when you were a runt. Acting like the war never ended. Because for you the war _hadn't _ended. The war wasn't over – you had your own war that you needed to finish. At this point it's way too optimistic to assume that the cops haven't gotten to all of my higher ranked men – for most of them now, they've been given a 'chance'. A chance to end their wars all at once at the cost of my life. You can probably figure out the rest on your own, right?"

I feel as though I can understand his words more clearly – in his terms, my war did not end until Nunnally was free from illness – to some extent my war still hasn't even ended.

In ending one's war, one buries everything in their past and looks towards the future. Their regrets, their hardships, their demons – everything a man carried from the battlefield would at last be sent back.

But in the Scarecrows you had vengeful Japanese men – their war wasn't over either. And their war would never end until they had the freedom they desired. And so the conflict could go on and on, miles away from and years after any sort of real battle. The bullets would still fly no matter what –

It finally clicks. The Scarecrows are falling apart because there are too many generals and not enough privates. Too many men fighting their own war, trying to meet their own ends, for organization to exist.

Jeremiah's model for the Scarecrows naturally gave all those that joined him hope. But in hope is the most potent despair – and with their leader on the run and the gang falling to pieces those without the tenacity to face the despair were willing to do anything to escape it, even going as far as killing the man who gave them a home for the opportunity to end their war, even if there's a chance they were just being used.

Japan wants freedom. Even if they have to defer to the law and are never truly free, as long as they have freedom from the culture of death, as long as they have freedom from the tunnels and the whip, and as long as they can take their families with them, they will have no regrets. The men of the Scarecrows are essentially being kept alive by that fact.

It should be expected. Loyalty stands no chance. Not in a world where everyone is so different and individualistic. These men are just that – they're men, not revolutionaries. Burning hearts and extremist intent with undying loyalty and faith are for children. The irony in that statement withstanding.

Perhaps tonight was going to decide more than I'd initially believed –

Jeremiah had baited everyone – everyone who wants his head on a platter will be gathering in one place at one time.

Whoever survives the inevitable conflict will be able to end their war. That much was almost certain. Whoever wins gets to walk away from the battlefield forever.

If Jeremiah survives, Nunnally will be guaranteed a normal life – my war ends. If Jeremiah dies, whoever gains freedom from his death will end their wars.

So all I had to do now was wait –

And then closure would be upon us – upon us all.

Shibuya Park itself was pretty small – most of it was blown away but the bulk of what was left had been converted into a small playground for children. Granted just about everyone in the area knew about this gang meeting and so the park was completely vacant – it's like they weren't even trying to hide it. It was so obvious that the police knew what was going to go on underneath the park that even a little kid could figure it out without issue.

We come to a stop near a swing set – Jeremiah gets out of the car and I follow. The moment I'm clear of the vehicle Jeremiah lets out a long sigh.

"It's been awhile since I've been out in the open like this."

"Your shooting arm isn't rusty at least… Or is it?"

Jeremiah pulls out a small revolver, notably smaller than my own. "Let's find out."

In one quick motion Jeremiah retracts the bolt and fires off a shot through the driver's window of the car – the driver had drawn his pistol, but a tad too late. The bullet passes cleanly through his skull and he sits there motionless.

"I'd say I've still got it."

"…I have to ask. Who was he aligned with?"

"One of Ougi's boys; no doubt about it. He has the hairline to hide it but he's got Ougi's mark on the back of his neck."

"Ougi's betrayed you? And here I thought we'd be able to count on him when a gunfight breaks out."

"Ougi isn't known for being particularly loyal. When he gets an idea in his head that goes against what he believes he tends to set his beliefs on fire without a second thought. He's got the heart of a lion but the brain of a subterranean rodent."

"So then we _can't _count on him when a gunfight breaks out."

"Were you hoping on having him as a meat shield?"

"Why not? It's not like I know him all that personally." I shrug my shoulders.

Jeremiah grins. "He'd be real pissed to hear you say that, you know?"

"In a few minutes I'm probably not going to care either way. Depending on how fast it takes him to draw his gun."

"Don't expect him to suddenly jump out in the open. He's an idiot, but if he's going to save anyone it's going to be his own hide, first and foremost."

"Then let's not give him the chance."

"What, you want to start the fight yourself?"

"One way or another the shooting's going to start, right? If we take the initiative what's going to happen?"

"Simple – say we get out of the crossfire alive. Sure we'd have managed to survive, but don't think that we'd be the only survivors. You tell me – when the leftovers who escape try to rally behind someone, do you _really _think they're going to side with the people that started the shooting in the first place?"

I fall silent. He has a very good point – there's no sense in making the first move after all. Initially I believed a sneak attack like the one we'd just suppressed was inevitable, and I was right. But I also concluded that we probably wouldn't get anywhere near the meeting ground before getting wasted – but ti would seem that there were enough members of the Scarecrows that were still on the fence. No one wanted to start the shooting right away, not if they wanted to get their mitts on Jeremiah's money or the resources of the Scarecrows. These were men, not boys – they were smart enough to know how to plan a coup but more importantly how _not _to plan one. The way things were right now we still had some time left to sort things out – although there was one party that would start shooting no matter what, that being law enforcement.

I had a feeling that this meeting would more or less be a debate over who could justify shooting who in the time it took law enforcement to arrive on the scene. And on that note, there's something very peculiar about this scenario that's puzzling me.

Jeremiah has no plan. He wants me to help him stay alive but he has no real plan for staying alive. It's almost as though he plans on just walking in and seeing how things go. I decide then to probe him for some alleviation to that concern – if I was going to do this I wasn't going to go down without a fight.

"So what exactly _are _we planning on doing? Are we going to wait for anyone in particular to make a move? Maybe wait for the cops?"

He seems almost hesitant to respond. But there was no way he didn't have _any _kind of a plan. "Well as it stands I'm only half sure on who plans to off me and who doesn't. I can anticipate Ougi wanting to hold off and wait for someone else to fire a shot, but lord knows what the rest of those assholes are going to do. All I know is that at least one of the big guys is going to want to at least know where I keep my stash before they blow my brains out. But I don't think the cops are going to be a problem."

"And why's that?"

"This area is too dangerous for them – you've seen how on edge they are now that I'm off their radar. They aren't as informed as you seem to think they are."

"But surely they have to know you're gathering your gang here."

"And I don't doubt that. But the cops have no allies in this part of the underworld. That's why they have to bribe my men – they can't win them over any other way. It's a serious advantage – having men that are nearly all Japanese doing your dirty work for you."

"But you really think they won't interfere?"

"If anything they'll wait until they know I'm dead before the move in. They know that there's some instability in the Scarecrows – but do you really think they know where? Do you think the average member of the gang is even aware?"

He had a good point – he'd generally operated the Scarecrows as a figurehead of several large sects that he rarely had any serious contact with. Perhaps that was part of the reason why his leadership was now in question – a good deal of his men had never even seen him before. But at the same time at least in a situation like this we weren't the only uncertain party – more or less everyone was in the dark about Jeremiah's movements. In fact, I was largely in the dark as well. But that doesn't change anything for me – if anything it'll help me stay alive a little longer.

Without any further hesitation we head through the park and towards the broken down fountain somewhere close to the center. Jeremiah pulls away a concrete tile among several covering what seemed to be a ladder leading into the depths below. Before I know it I've sunk beneath the surface, following Jeremiah down the very old and very likely to break down at any moment ladder into the darkness.

The meeting ground beneath the park was surprisingly well attended to – at the base of the ladder we found ourselves in a massive amphitheatre-like space, with stone fixtures lining the walls in rows serving as some sort of seating – there was enough space here to accommodate quite a large number of people, with clearly well maintained light fixtures hanging from the ceiling that despite only dimly lighting the space. The notion that the cops wouldn't have this place under lockdown twenty four hours a day is somewhat baffling – hell, they could start holding hockey games down here with enough renovation.

At this point we weren't the only ones present – there were other Scarecrow members already present despite it being roughly two hours until the meeting. You'd think these men would be more reluctant to show up to a gunfight in the making, but even so there were at least thirty or so gang members seated atop the stone fixtures.

The moment Jeremiah enters the room all eyes are on him – and on me by proxy. It's a wonder that anyone could recognize him by sight – in that moment my chest tightens. Even though Jeremiah had established that his traitors opening fire right away wasn't a likely scenario I couldn't help but consider the possibility – Jeremiah pats my shoulder before taking a seat not that far from the entrance. Provided that people interesting in killing him wouldn't hang near it having the entrance as an escape route is a pretty smart idea. I take a seat next to him.

"Can we leave yet?" I ask him with a sigh.

"Come on, Lelouch. We at least have to stay for the coffee." Despite his joke he doesn't sound enthusiastic at all. He's about a ready to run out of the room as I am –

Over an hour passes by before things finally start going –

All of Jeremiah's top dogs were here – Ougi Kaname, Shinichiro Tamaki, and Yoshitaka Minami were all present and sat on different sides of the room in the very bottom rows, nearest the small stage-like area in the center of the room. It would seem that none of them were actively planning anything, but then again it never _would _seem like they were actively planning anything.

Jeremiah stands, finally pleased with the turnout – there were at least ninety Scarecrows here, perhaps even more. It was an astounding turnout, especially considering how disjointed the gang had been as of recent times.

Jeremiah moves out of the row and starts to head down the stairs. "You wait here." He whispers to me.

"I don't think I'll be able to do much protecting from up here-"

"Don't worry about it. You'll have your chance to shine once I tell you so." With one final smile, he heads down the stairs towards the center of the auditorium.

"So you're here in the flesh this time!" Tamaki is clearly impressed – although he's clearly just putting on an enthusiastic act, so it was hard to tell exactly what he was at the moment.

"I figured that since this is going to be one of our last meetings I might as well skip out on the whole messenger thing for once."

"Oh? One of our last meetings?" Ougi questions. "Why might that be?"

"Isn't it obvious? Tokyo's getting too small for our gang to meet in places like this. We're going to need to revamp our system unless we feel like walking into an old fashioned setup like a bunch of idiots. You get it?"

"Are we really _that _bad off?" Minami questions. "If I recall correctly you were sitting on a pretty hefty sum that you raked in over the last year alone."

"Indeed. A hefty sum he's keeping all to himself, might I add." Ougi comments. "If we're going to revamp anything it's going to be how we spend money."

"I need my cash for my couriers to get their jobs done." Jeremiah's already defending himself and this meeting has only been live for all of forty-five seconds. "Say I need a job done and I don't have the cash and can't _get _to the cash – then what happens? There's an article in the paper about the Scarecrows leader getting wasted and we _all _feel the heat from the fire."

"Even so, there's a point where _we _have jobs that _we _need to get done. We'd have been able to get you here three times as fast if you let us make use of the primary funds." Ougi counters. "The same goes for just about every job we try to pull off – we already have no room for error, but having practically no room to succeed because we lack the funds to pay off who we need to doesn't help out."

"Hey, I've gotta say, boss, he's got a point." Tamaki chimes in. "You know how the cops found out where you were living in the first place? We couldn't pay the politician we relied on to get funding for the stock market project – which, if you forgot, went ass backward – and he blabbed the details he knew straight to Bismarck." While Tamaki was ultimately loyal to Jeremiah he still voiced his opinion. There were fundamental issues with the gang that needed to be rectified – but that wasn't what this meeting was about."

"Right now the Japanese people are thriving thanks to what we've done so far, but none of it is enough, especially not –"

"You can cut the crap, Ougi." Jeremiah interrupts him.

The congregation goes into an uproar. Ougi's supporters start cursing at Jeremiah while the rest either laugh or express some distasteful comment.

"Don' think I'm dumb. I might be a shut-in, but I'm not an idiot." He continues. "Clearly you all showed up because you want a shot at my wallet. And why do you want my money? Not because you deserve it, not because you're going to use it to 'better Japan and its ailing peoples', not because you're going to streamline our gang's operations – I know the ground is shrinking. The only way to fix it is to reorganize our gang so only the administrators get to have their say in the meetings. But then all the small fry are gonna go 'hey, where the fuck is _my _cash?' – and don't act like none of you will, because you've already been doing it. I'm not sure how many times I need to establish this, but the Scarecrows are a _gang_, _not a resistance movement. _You all want instant results. If you want instant results, get the fuck out of here and get your ass to Yamato, you'll get some _really _instant results up there. Without _structure _none of this has any meaning – and I know that all the newbies in the crowd don't agree with that. You're all stuck up over the television version of a gang – in the real world a gang is a company that does everything illegally. And without discipline, the only way to run it is by internalizing internalized organization. "

"The only way you're going to get what you want," Ougi speaks, "is to make the primary funds public. If what you're saying is actually true, the only way to make things balance out is to spread the wealth – We _need _that money –"

"You need that money to pay the cops not to blow your house down. And don't act like you're going to spend it on anything else."

"With that money, the gang will be able to survive even _if _the head gets taken down. Ultimately that should be what's important."

Jeremiah laughs. "You _really _think one of you little shits has the balls to maintain this structure? I know what's on all your minds – yeah, the Scarecrows are falling to fucking pieces, but even then they're not going to fall apart completely as long as I'm still ticking."

"You're assuming far too much." Ougi continues. "But if you won't give us the money we need –"

"Ah, so here's the part where you stop dicking around – let's have a show of hands. How many of you showed up for a chance to blow my brains out?"

The congregation goes into another uproar. Ougi's visibly sweating now – he's not sure how much Jeremiah knows, and he's not sure how much his supporters know.

But –

In the next moment, it's not going to matter _what _he knows.

"Things are definitely not going the way we wanted them to. And for the sake of this establishment that I've put so much work into, I've decided to step down."

The uproar is even louder. I sort of feel like making an uproar as well. Was _this _what he had in mind? Did he really think _this _would keep him out of harm's way?

"I've decided to pass everything I have control over to this young man way in the back – over here."

In a matter of moments I realize he's pointing to me.

I stand. Mostly out of shock.

…What?

All eyes focus on me. All eyes.

"As of this morning control of the Scarecrows is in his hands. He has access to the primary funds, the secondary funds – all of our funds are in his hands. So if you're going to lynch someone, lynch him." The crowd erupts again.

Ah, of course –

I _was _here as his bodyguard.

So –

Five hundred thousand dollars in exchange for having a bull's-eye permanently taped to the back of my head.

But –

I had no access to any of those things. It was all a lie.

But for an instant all eyes are on me –

…

But what good would that do him?

But then –

Then I look towards him, as all eyes are focused on me –

And –

As he stands there, I see it –

In his right hand –

A –

A small cylindrical device with a button on one end –

A _detonator?! _

In all of an instant a myriad of explosions cry out around the room – I see several flashing lights before I'm sent flying from my feet and onto the hard concrete –

Concrete and dirt rain down from above. My ears ring from the intensity of orchestra of destruction, my heart beating faster and faster –

I hear shouting. I hear gunfire. I hear crying.

Explosives – explosives had been placed throughout the room – behind the seats, underneath them, in the pillars holding up the ceiling, in the steps leading downward – Jeremiah had laced the entirety of the meeting ground with explosives prior to the gathering – from the very beginning he'd planned to kill everyone that showed up to his 'emergency meeting', wiping out not only all those that would have opposed him, but the rest of the Scarecrows in their entirety, throwing the structure of organized crime that he'd worked so hard and sacrificed so much to establish into the fire – along with me, to whom he has been a surrogate father, and himself as well.

This is some sort of joke.

Is –

Is this really happening right now?

This has to be some sort of hallucination.

Hollow promises, Mass murder, suicide bombing –

This –

That man down there right now –

That _can't _be Jeremiah Gottwald.

It just _can't_…!

In all of a single instant, pandemonium has taken over –

I manage to sit myself up – but in all of an instant three men scrambling towards the exit trample over me, with one of them sinking their heel right into my recovering wound. The pain isn't excruciating, but all the energy in my left arm evaporates immediately. I manage to grab hold of one of them men with my other arm and drag him to the ground, and in the moment that he tries to shake me off I've already removed his pistol from his holster and whipped him in the temple with it. Everything slows down – I feel the need to fix my hat to calm myself down, but my hat is nowhere to be seen – I consider searching for it until another explosive goes off just above me – I finally manage to get to my feet, narrowly avoiding being crushed by falling debris –

And then another explosion – this one right behind me, sending me tumbling down the stairs and into another group of fleeing men. In the next moment all four of us were trying to get to our feet at the same time, pushing and shoving each other like our lives depended on it – I manage to break out of the mess and move forward –

And I fall over again – some chunk of shrapnel had managed to find a home in my right thigh – my hands are shaking far too much, but even so I manage to remove it – but the bleeding won't stop so easily –

And then another explosion goes off – this one no more than six stairs below where I was standing – I'm sent flying onto my back, the back of my head bashing against the concrete –

I black out.

I see nothing but black – but my mind won't stop racing –

In what feels like no more than ten seconds my consciousness returns –

I sit up – bodies liter the auditorium, scattered every which way. Explosions were still going off and gunfire was still being exchanged – the surviving men were now fighting for their lives, attempting to escape through the caved in entrances and were shooting their fellow gang members dead for a chance at freedom –

It only made sense that it had degenerated into this – give a man at war a weapon and he will fire it.

And down below, not that far away from where I had landed –

Jeremiah is still standing there in the center of the room, having dropped the detonator and now staring emptily at it. Tamaki lies dead with his neck snapped at his side, while Ougi is bleeding out on the floor.

I rise to my feet, trying to move towards him – but I'm suddenly held back. I turn – it's the man who drove me around for Jeremiah's various tasks, including the college student assassination. His eyes are wide, his head is bleeding – his left arm is missing.

"L-Lelouch…? You're here…?! P-Please, you _have _to help me… I – I don't know where my arm is – I _need _my arm, please, you have to help me find it!" He starts to shake me violently with his remaining arm in a hysterical fashion –

I stare blankly at him –

Ah, right. This man – he knows my name. He knows who I am and where I live. He knows Shirley, he knows Nunnally –

He could've been planning to turn on Jeremiah.

And if he was then he won't give two shits about what happens to Nunnally, or Shirley, or Kallen, or –

In all of an instant I press my recently acquired pistol to his left temple and fire a single round into his skull. He drops dead in all of an instant. And –

And I killed him. I broke my rule.

But who _gives _a shit? I don't –

I don't care anymore.

I'll kill whoever I have to –

If I can't protect Nunnally, if I can't help Kallen out of her pit –

But –

But was there even a point anymore? I was going to die no matter what now – the entrance was caved in. There was literally no way out.

It was over. It was all over. It was all a ruse from the beginning – there was no money. There was no guarantee that Nunnally was going to ever be able to make use of that money ever – there isn't even a guarantee that she's _alive _right now. The bar could be torched to ashes by now –

That's right…

Jeremiah was going to betray me from the beginning –

And –

And I continue towards him, my rage slowly building –

I don't care about our past. I don't care about how much I owe him. Because he clearly doesn't anymore.

"So _this _was what you had in mind?!" I shout at him. "_This _was your solution?! _What in god's name _does this accomplish?!"

He looks up at me –

For a moment it seems as though he knows who I am. But in another instant he glares at me, drawing his pistol and shooting –

I don't fire back –

Because it's Jeremiah who's shooting at me –

And I can't –

I can't understand why –

Had his shot not missed entirely, I'd be dead by now – but –

Another explosion, this time one just off to the side – Tamaki's corpse goes flying like a ragdoll from the shockwave but I manage to stand my ground. I take aim, but as I've already established I can't shoot.

"Why?" My hands start shaking – my aim is no longer steady. "This isn't right! _Why are you doing this?!_"

"Didn't I always tell you?" He suddenly speaks. "There's always…"

Something then occurs to me –

I remember –

_There's always someone we have to protect. That's the sort of men we are. _

It made sense, but –

But Jeremiah had no one –

I'm unable to question his logic – he readies his pistol again. "It's as simple as that. You see, when I told you that there were people in the Scarecrows that the cops know how to take advantage of –"

"So this is it, then? You're going to throw away _everything_? For something that might not even happen?!"

"Exactly, Lelouch… I'm going to throw away everything. For something that might not even happen. It doesn't matter…" His eyes waver as he tries to take another shot at me but misses once more. He shuts his eyes tightly, his whole body shaking. "It doesn't matter if my war isn't over. It doesn't matter if I go back home in a casket." He forces his eyes open, his gaze more intense than ever before. "It doesn't matter if everything I've ever stood for falls to fucking pieces – as long as I can die protecting _that one person_…!"

His aim is finally steady.

"But Lelouch – you can't go home in a casket. No – you have to disappear. You can never go home – even if you're…!"

I don't understand –

"Even if you're _their _son…!"

And with that –

I understand…

I understand everything now –

I could try to move out of the way. I could try to stop him –

But –

But I can't.

Because I know there's no hope.

There's no escaping this fate.

There was _never _any escaping from this fate.

And so I accept it –

But then –

Then another explosion, different from all the others, occurs just above us –

Light pours down from up above –

The debris, deadly in size, descends upon Jeremiah –

But he doesn't move.

Instead –

He laughs.

He laughs as one who lost their mind would laugh.

And descending from the light is Zero, with some sort of rope attached from a hook to his back. He lands no more than three feet away from me.

At the same moment the caved in entrance behind me suddenly bursts open from the other side. The men surrounding it are all blown away while those who hadn't been in close enough range are suddenly forced to stop fighting.

And a single man leaps into the room, carrying what appeared to be a standard issue AK-47, distancing himself far enough from the entrance to turn and open fire on all those standing on either side of it midair, effortlessly mowing down every last one of them and then landing with extreme precision.

A single police officer with the grace of a macabre dancer.

It almost went without saying that this single assailant was Suzaku – law enforcement had arrived, right on schedule.

The remaining Scarecrows all turned their attention towards him – many started shooting, but there was no way in hell Suzaku would be shot so easily. In a matter of moments his fellow officers begin to file into the room, shooting everyone in sight without a second thought.

"We need to leave." Zero suddenly speaks. I turn back towards him – immediately I notice that he's bleeding, the cloth of his scarf torn and blood seeping from beneath – judging from where the wound was he'd been either shot or cut just below his neck.

"You picked a lovely time to show yourself."

"There's no time for this now. We need to leave."

"So you came here solely to pick me up, eh? That sounds a little too good to be true."

"It's my fault you're here in the first place – again, we can discuss this later. But now –"

I then look towards where Jeremiah had been standing –

And he's lying there, his entire right side crushed beneath a large concrete chunk that Zero's entrance had shook loose.

He's still smiling.

"Wait…" I reply to Zero's obvious statement. "…I need to resolve something with him first."

"You have twelve seconds. Or less depending on whether or not your war buddy over there can make it here faster." Zero tugs on his rope to ensure that it's still secure.

I approach Jeremiah – blood trickles from the corner of his mouth. His gaze is slowly growing darker.

"So even now, despite everything…" He speaks, his voice barely above a whisper. "…You're going to live." He laughs. "So then it's true… It's all true…!" He coughs, blood spurting from his mouth and onto his face.

I can't really reply to him – I can barely follow his line of thought at this point. But even so –

"Is my sister alive?" I ask him.

"I told you… No harm would come to… to her… I promised…!"

"Am I to believe that your promises mean anything?"

"Just you… You were the only one I… was told to kill… No one knows – no one knows about Nunnally… I swear."

But even then someone had targeted me – but if I was to die underground, there was very little chance of my body being found to begin with.

Perhaps that was why Jeremiah had chosen to be buried alive – perhaps he felt as though there would be some way for me to escape.

For the sake of someone he had to protect, Jeremiah had been forced to give up everything including his life.

He was born with nothing. And in the end he will die with nothing, despite having gained so much.

"…In the end, was this worth it?"

"Of course… it was…"

"Even if the one you're protecting dies no matter what?"

"Everything's going to change now, Lelouch… From here on out there's no… safety net. There's just – chaos… Without me, without the structure, crime… will be more deadly than ever before. It will be steal or die – and for Britannia, it will be eat or be eaten… He'll finally have to hear my call… Charles will have to acknowledge me. And that's – that's all it'll take." He shifts his gaze. "…Lelouch. I have no right to ask this of you… but, please, you have to do it – you have to be the one to end my war. You have… You have to be the one to kill that man… You have to kill the emperor. You're the only one… The only one who knows everything."

"…I understand." By no means had I vowed to do so no matter what, but –

Perhaps Jeremiah would not die with nothing. For he had left me behind – his knowledge, his past – all of it he had left with me.

He closes his eyes.

"…His name… is Xenolith."

"…Xenolith?" Zero suddenly whispers that name under his breath.

"No matter what, you…"

But Jeremiah never finishes his sentence. He passes then and there.

I step away from him –

But at the same time Suzaku finally reaches us – but before he can even get off the ground I plant a bullet into his right shoulder.

Why had I shot him?

He was just acting under orders.

But right now –

Because of those god forsaken Britannians –

Because of the people he had devoted his life to –

Because of them Jeremiah did all of this –

And if he was going to stand by them –

I would have to cut him down.

I shoot again. This round pierces his lower abdomen. He lies motionless on the floor. He wasn't dead, but for the moment perhaps immobile.

Several officers close in on us – Zero moves away from the center, pushing me out of the line of fire in the process. I manage to grab a hold of Suzaku's AK before I hid behind some of the rubble nearby.

Because of these people –

Because of the 'law' –

Every value I'd ever stood by – every ounce of self control in my body dissolves –

I open fire – I mow down perhaps twenty officers with little effort.

And then I keep on shooting.

These were all men with families and children. These men all had people they needed to protect. People who needed them, just like Nunnally needed me. These people were acting under orders. They didn't necessarily agree with their superiors, nor did they kill because they wanted to.

But I don't care –

I _really don't give an iota of a shit right now –_

Eventually I run out of shots to fire – and in that moment I suddenly snap back to reality.

Innumerable bodies lie motionless in the wake of my rampage –

I suddenly feel Zero's hand on my shoulder – he grabs a hold of my arm without warning and in all of a moment we begin our ascent. I release the AK and blankly stare forward at Jeremiah's corpse, vanishing into the darkness.

Zero and I reach the surface – there are hundreds upon hundreds of police officers surrounding the park – cars from every district line the streets, and the highest ranking officials from every prefecture were all present as well further behind them.

The moment we hit the surface Zero pulls the pin out of what appears to be a grenade and hurls it in the direction of the officers without hesitation.

And in the instant the grenade blows, we're given the window of opportunity we need to escape.

And in all of an instant we're on the run, praying that no one had seen us, heading into the nearest alleyway and out of sight.

And despite everything –

Despite everything that had happened, despite everything that was happening now –

I feel as though a little bit of the life inside of me has died.

No matter what – I couldn't let Jeremiah's story end like this.

But even then I would.

Even then I'd let his ambitions die right along with him.

Because, after all, my war hasn't ended either.

But I can't go home in a casket. And I can't disappear either.

And there was nothing…

…Nothing I could do.

* * *

_**~Prologue END~**_

* * *

(The next chapter will be narrated by someone that isn't Lelouch. Look forward to it.)


	4. Disclosed Information I

_**Currently Disclosed Information I **_

_A Volume Taken From the Holy Britannian Center's Restricted Section:  
__Commentary on 'A King's Crossing', by Gilbert Guilford  
__Date Not Given, circa 2100 A.C.E._

_From the comfort of our seats, so far in the future, we look back on this time with critical eyes. We see the events leading up to our time as something critical to our future. We see history as the key to our survival. We will capture the truth in all its glory, and with it as our great weapon we will charge forward to the future without censorship, the future without control, the future where mankind may be lit with the fires of independence. This is our blood oath, we historians of Shicksal, we pioneers of absolute truth. Our justice is great justice, our justice is true justice. And with justice we shall set our fellow man free._

Our doctrine. Our law. Our flesh and blood. What we live for, as without it we would be nothing. I suppose that this alone should suffice as introduction – but then again I suppose that anyone in possession of these documents would be left with an eschewed idea of what it is that we are. This document will largely be classified - that being said, so the contents of this volume do not fall into the wrong hands, these brief excerpts from here on out will not be dated or signed. That being said, I feel as though I have to establish who I am personally, and what all of this is about.

My name is Gilbert Guilford. As it stands I am a member of Shicksal, an organization of dissenters from the public order that seek to logically nurture a new order for the sake of a better future for mankind. As of the time of this writing it is the year 2170, over two hundred years since the days of conflict in Tokyo that sparked the conflict that forever changed our world. I am a historian of this time – and in this day and age, a historian is nothing more than a man who seeks the truth from ages past. Granted, I wish not to comment on my gender for fear of alienating any potential readers, but hopefully those who stumble upon this chronicle of mine will not be so jaded.

In essence, the nation we live in now is no different from the Britannia of two hundred years ago – in the aftermath of the _Third International War of Supremacy_, better known to more contemporary folk as the Third World War, the surviving political powers pooled together the nations with ideals that concurred with their own and butchered the rest with nuclear holocaust and formed the Center, essentially the sort of totalitarian government that Britannia had been striving toward but had not quite been able to achieve due to the concept of 'allies' and 'enemies' still having merit. The Center is ruled by a sole figure, an emperor, with countless attendants spread across the world. It is through these attendants that the emperor controls everything – and by everything I do indeed mean simply everything.

The Center is simply all there is – the Center and the outlying cities that surround it are all that there is to our nation. The rest of the world is simply a collection of these centers – of these massive, floating castles that stand as the symbol of this new world of ours.

Out of fear they tried to control us. Out of fear insatiable conflict gripped the world. And out of fear they won. Out of that very same fear they established complete control – so they would never fear ever again. At least, that is what I have come to believe.

The Center imposes upon our world total control as to prevent another war from taking place. Culture is dead – the only colors that fill our world are black and white, even down to a visual level. We are all either farmhands that produce food for the people in the Center itself and those who sell to those around it, or engineers that maintain the floating structure. Individual taste or opinion simply do not exist – there are no television stations outside the three stations the Center regulates on a twenty four hour basis, there is no radio, no newspaper, no social commentary, no movies outside those approved by a Center's attendant – when away from work or school an individual is free to do as they please, but over the years all people know is how to stay in line – how not to deviate. There is no crime. There is no law regarding crime, even. There is only the idea of dissenters being put to the sword that instill fear in all rebellion. There is safety and security, there is comfort and stability, but there is no free will.

The only grey that exists in our world lives on in libraries – or rather, those left unmarked by the Center's global torching of all fine art and literature. Copies of various volumes managed to survive for two hundred years – it is through these that things like 'individuality' and 'ambition' still have meaning.

Shicksal is very much akin to the Yamato Resistance movement of two hundred years ago. Our purpose is to abolish control, but within the context of this new society. We are based in, as of now, three different Centers, with this Center being located above what was once Hong Kong. Our influence does not reach the main Center in former Tokyo, nor do we have any vocal supporters amongst the attendants. In essence, our organization lives on in the dying hopes of the people – and as such, our ambitions are very slowly fading into the darkness. But even so we won't submit.

Numbers are simply not enough. Weapons and missiles are simply not enough. If all that occurs is another war nothing will ever truly change – by now even the youngest of citizens understand this. It is far too late for brute force and overwhelming odds to shape society – the people desire to break free from the chain. But the chain is simply too strong. The people are powerless. And to a large extent so are we.

A future for our society cannot be won with soldiers and weaponry. A future has to be won with ideals and true power – the sort of power that is both lost and gained in this tale of two hundred years ago. It is that true power we seek – true power that can overthrow even the strongest of warlords. Shicksal is built almost entirely of would-be politicians that seek to derive the appropriate ideals and the appropriate form of power to reshape the world.

The truth of power, and the truth of weakness – it is something that those who think it over may find to be extremely simple. That power and weakness are simply inevitable, and that the defeatists have been right all along, and that on a grand scale there is no way for the weak to become strong. But the truth about power is nowhere near that clear cut.

No – the truth about power is more complex than any mathematical formula could ever be. The truth about power is hidden – hidden deep within the history of Lelouch Lamperouge and his fall from grace. Hidden within the confines of his story.

The story that you have read through so far is simply a record – 'A King's Crossing,' a record written by an unknown author that details the story of two men – Lelouch Lamperouge and Suzaku Kururugi, two men on opposite sides of the same spectrum in virtually every way, from nationality to ideology, and along with them the fate of the world that existed before ours. A record that found its way into my possession by means of a nameless peddler on the streets of the city below. While it has indeed been verified that events that are recounted in this record did indeed happen I am the only member of Shicksal that sees merit in it.

You could consider this record to be a gospel of some sort – a story of events that supposedly happened that when put together convey a single, prominent idea. Whether or not the events are entirely true, or even if there's any real message to this record still remains to be seen. But I intend to tear apart this tale, page by page, as I attempt to uncover the truth that our society needs so desperately.

In this day and age, the individuals from the tale that you have come to know and perhaps even understand more than I do have all passed on – taken by the passage of time, taken by the war, taken by the events leading up to it. Whether their sacrifices were in vain or not, I intend to carry on their wills collectively. But in order to do that I have to be able to understand – I have to reach the truth, no matter what. And so I shall document my search, so that should I perish or lose faith in my cause before its completion that someone else can carry on in my place.

To anyone who may be reading this, please –

If I fail, please share with the rest of mankind the truth in my place –

Bring to light once and for all the truth about power. Help set our hearts at ease.

My motivations are established – so now let us begin to discuss and infer this excerpt of the truth –

The record itself is oddly enough broken up into parts – two parts, to be precise. Each part details a large period of time. Part 1, titled _To Be Worthy of That Name_, covers Lelouch and Suzaku's trail across Tokyo from 1965 to 1967. Part 2, titled _A Rebellion Scorched Black_, covers events from 1970, the year the Third World War formally began, to 1971, the year Britannia destroyed seventy-nine percent of Japan's landmass with the Freija, an experimental nuclear warhead that promptly ended the Japanese portion of the conflict, killing millions in the process. Each part is divided into chapters much like any properly constructed book, although it's unknown exactly what the reasoning behind each chapter's cutoff point was.

But aside from these two parts there is furthermore a prologue – a prologue that is broken into three chapters, that oddly enough starts off at Chapter Two, as opposed to Chapter One, as would be the usual standard. The record itself is bound like any library book and there was no indication of any pages being missing. Why these three chapters are turned into a prologue is beyond me, but perhaps it will become clearer as I try to decipher the big picture.

As far as historical accuracy is concerned, there is definitely something to be said about Lelouch's account of the individual Zero and the Night Riders. Historically there is a Zero, who served as the leader for the Japanese resistance movement that ultimately sparked the Third World War in 1970, but there is nothing that ever suggested that he was a prominent figure in Tokyo's criminal underworld. Several sources – each being approved by the Center at different times over the decades and those before them the Center neglected to remove – cite Zero as being a figure of Chinese origin, which openly contradicts the events of this record, but furthermore cite Zero as an out spoken pro-Nazi advocate that was part of the wave of German dissenters trying to reestablish the Third Reich after the war had ended.

Initially I felt as though this Germany angle was completely absurd and dismissed it as entirely irrelevant to deciphering the truth in the record, but I then realized that Lelouch very explicitly claims that he is at least half German, which turns the Britannian men in the truck with him against him. Perhaps there is a correlation between the two points – or perhaps the German aspect is only present in history's recollection of Zero because Britannians by nature despised the German people after the bombings, and thus the people of the Center, who are all built on largely Britannian principles, would understand Zero to be nothing but evil. Perhaps Lelouch's 'talk' with the men in the truck is included at all in the first place simply to provide perspective on the average Britannian at the time. From a literary perspective this certainly makes sense – perhaps this is the true author's way of describing the Britannia of the past for the people of their own time period. To provide perspective on the foundations of the world they lived in.

With this in mind, it seems as though the author wishes to convey that this story is the absolute truth – but given what occurs further down the line, I have a hard time accepting everything as fact – but unlike my colleagues I won't let that deter me.

As far as the various characters that make appearances, there isn't really much I can say about the ones closest to Lelouch – Lelouch himself is not a figure in history, nor is his sister or any of the people close to him.

As far as Kaguya Sumeragi goes, our history puts her in Japan when the Freija was fired, with her significance to the conflict varying. We do indeed know that she was involved in early Japanese resistance, but she isn't credited for anything beyond that. The notion that she was one of the three most powerful criminals in Tokyo is somewhat hard to believe.

Jeremiah Gottwald has the most peculiar history, and revolves around a point that I believe the author of the record devised themselves. Based off of all the old military records I was able to salvage from Hong Kong I was able to confirm that Jeremiah did serve in the Britannian military and was given a dishonorable discharge after the attack on Aries Palace, and while he did indeed go on to establish an organized crime syndicate the name 'Scarecrows' seems to have been pulled out of thin air – although in the author's defense there is no actual _name _for Jeremiah's organization in any record that currently exists. As far as Jeremiah's death is concerned, he vanishes from history after his organization falls apart, so there is little discrepancy on that point. But that isn't the only significance there is to Jeremiah's character – but giving these details out now won't serve any purpose as you have yet to access the material pertaining to them.

Suzaku Kururugi, who ironically enough is the perspective character of the first chapter of Part One, is a bit more notable in the sense that he was a prominent figure in the initial Japanese revolt. He fought for the Britannian royal family, mainly at the side of his mistress, Euphemia vi Britannia – who at the time of the Third World War was the only heir to the throne – and was on the frontlines of the battle that occurred after the Freija bombing in Japan that led to the establishment of the first Center. He is marked down as having been killed in that very same battle, although certain details lead me to believe that history is inaccurate on this point.

Before I close this entry out I wish to convey one final idea, not as much in general but to you, who have yet to delve into this tale any further.

It almost goes without saying that this story isn't going to have a happy ending. But even so there's nothing that suggests that the result will be entirely bleak, even if the world where the Center rules is the ultimate result. Even when the fighting stops, even when the victor is determined – even when one's heart stops beating, the story behind them never truly ends. It is as Jeremiah puts it in the record – even when the fighting stops, the war goes on. It goes on and on, without end until all the loose ends are finally wrapped up. Even in the world where the Center rules everything, the ideals of these people who have long since passed still carry on.

And they will continue to carry on, until at last their war ends –


End file.
